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"Everything that lives is designed to end. We are perpetually trapped... in a never-ending spiral of life and death. Is this a curse? Or some kind of punishment? I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle... and wonder if we'll ever have a chance to kill him."

The PS4 version was released in 2017 on February 23 in Japan, March 7 in the USA, and March 10 in Europe, while the PC version was released on March 17. Following this it was made available digitally on the Xbox One platform as the NieR: Automata BECOME AS GODS Edition on June 26, 2018.

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Aborted Arc: One occurs surprisingly fast near the beginning of the game. The Commander tasks 2B and 9S to head down to Earth to meet up with the Resistance and find an informant who has gone missing. However, once they touch down and meet Anemone, the informant is never mentioned and the whole mission is forgotten by everyone.

Absurdly Sharp Blade: Every android weapon with a cutting edge must have at least one, considering how they're used to cut apart legions of armored robots day in, day out. 2B's late-game boss fight in the Abandoned Factory provides a particularly good example that plays out in a cool Diagonal Cut cutscene.

Absurdly Spacious Sewer: One of the many areas the YoRHa squad can explore are a network of sewers that is big enough for them to stand up with room to spare.

Achievements in Ignorance: One sidequest has you funding the exploits of a hare-brained scientist. After you give him $100,000, he "fails" sending a rocket to the moon because he sent it to Mars. You can even buy a facehugger from him to act as a mask.

Achievement Mockery: The game gives you the "What Are You Doing?" achievement for looking up 2B's dress.

Action Bomb: The machine lifeforms field various types of suicide bomber units, with some of them being little more than explosive barrels on legs. Destroying them before they can blow themselves up yields a nice XP reward and, if timed right, can wipe out entire enemy squads in the ensuing explosion.

Action Girl: All of the combat oriented YoRHa are female, and all of them can put up quite a fight, but of course 2B and A2 are the primary examples.

Actionized Sequel: While the first game was action-themed already, Cavia put really simplistic controls due to their inexperience. This game gives the action the Platinum Games treatment.

After the End: Takes place even further after the catastrophe that seemingly destroyed humanity in the first NieR, now focusing on the YoRHa combat androids as they fight against the machine lifeforms commanded by the aliens who invaded the planet.

The machine lifeforms kill their own masters, and their new leaders (by the merit of being able to corrupt the simpler machines into doing their bidding) relish in conflict as it brings forth evolution. That said, the aliens' incompetence is also a major factor, as they programmed the machines to "destroy the enemy" without making it clear what the enemy was.

When Grün - a gigantic machine lifeform from the early years of the Machine War that was created specifically to destroy androids - can't find any more androids to kill in the vicinity, it massacres its machine buddies instead. Unable to stop the rampaging Omnicidal Maniac, they banish it to the depths of the Pacific, where it remains for many millennia.

Alien Invasion: The machine lifeforms were brought to earth by an alien race.

the Emil centric Space War, the Fires of Prometheus short story and the YoRHa Stage Play all detail major parts of the backstory of Automata, including the events of the Alien Invasion that brought the Machine Lifeforms, the initial spark that drove both sides' seemingly endless fascination with humanity of the past, and A2's full backstory. Some of these details are given in the game itself, but from various Unreliable Narrators who lack the full context or details the other works provide.

The novella The Memory Cage tells us why 9S, an android who wasn't built for physical combat, is capable of fighting in the first place. It also contains a battle between 2B and 9S that will serve as the foundation of their relationship, since it's implied that this is the first time 2B had to kill 9S due to her true function as an Executioner-type.

The soundtrack came with a coded message about 9S memories. The memories of what the Ark is like inside (from one of the two ending D outcomes), where he reveals it's similar to the Garden of Eden and free of original sin. He fears that a person like himself is unworthy of being in such a paradise.

An official timeline from the strategy guide explains what happened after the death of the final Gestalt: a small number of androids become "Independists" and leave for Australia after choosing to abandon their attachment to humanity; the aliens take over South and North America; a "Dragon" weapon is created to fight the aliens and machines; Beepy ascends towards space after altering the Machines and numerous androids; and, the Command leads both the Resistance and The Army of Humanity, and YoRHa oversees Project Gestalt, punishing all Devola and Popola models. Other points in the timeline also detail events following the games Ending C/D/E, which includes two unknown events (2B and 9S reawakening respectively) shortly after the ending of the game, an armistice between Humanity and the Machines with Pascal as the Machines' leader, and a civil war that eventually breaks out between Machine Lifeforms following Emil's sighting of 2B 400 years later.

The Nier Concert event details short story events spoken from the perspective of the characters and details numerous events from the well-meaning creator of YoRHa, Zinnia, and the descent into madness by 9S prototype Number 9, 2B learning 9S will likely never wake up nor will A2 following the events of Ending C/D, 9S asking 2B to continue to kill him as long as it means they'll meet each other again, and the story of how A2 encountered 2B and 9S multiple times and killed them in each encounter, and that she learned how to fight back against S-Type hacking.

Post ending E story about 9S not waking up was actually a troll by Yoko Taro, included in the script sold before the concert to avoid spoilers leaking out. He wakes up during the actual concert. A2 isn't mentioned in the play at all aside from one sentence about her memories, and when Taro was asked about her he said that it's up to the player to decide if she woke up or not.

The Strategy Guide contains other numerous details, which not only includes the Timeline mentioned above, but other details that influence the story including how Adam hacking into 9S and 9S hacking into Eve caused parts of their data to merge with his own, which is why his memories of 2B fight like Eve on Route C.

Eve assaults the Resistance camp near the end of Routes A and B, and attempts to destroy Pascal's village as well.

The logic virus hits the Bunker's upload server, infecting all of the androids there save 2B and 9S. The Bunker ends up getting destroyed in the chaos.

Pascal's village is assaulted again by logic virus-infected machines in the second part. This time, it doesn't survive the assault.

Alternate Personality Punishment: The twin androids Popola and Devola are not the same units responsible for the demise of humanity in NieR, but all androids are hard-coded to shun and dislike them as punishment for the sins of their forebears.

An Axe to Grind: Some machine lifeforms are armed with axes. You can equip these, as well as other axe-type weapons, under the "Large Swords" category.

And I Must Scream: The story for the Fang of the Twins weapon. Twins were sacrificed and their souls put into the blade. At first they are happy to be united for eternity, but eventually begin to go mad.

"We are together. We are one. Life or death. Even if we kill our foes. Even if we kill each other. Our two bodies will be as one for all time. Someone separate us. Oh god please someone help m"note It ends cut off like this. It's not clear if this was intentional or a typo.

And Your Reward Is Clothes: Finishing Route C unlocks several purely cosmetic items for the protagonists, like two suits of Powered Armor for 2B, a "camouflage visor" that's so stealthy it completely removes her black blindfold, or a wig for A2 that restores her long hair. Others can be acquired through various sidequests, like ribbons or a Lunar Tear flower that can be worn in a character's hair. Last but not least, the 3C3C1D119440927 DLC introduces another bunch of cosmetic items that can be unlocked by completing quests or competing in arena battles. Some of them even confer actual gameplay bonuses, and one of the 3C segments of the DLC's name explicitly stands for "3 Costumes".

Another Side, Another Story: Route B is basically the first playthrough from 9S' perspective, while Route C (where the other 3 main endings are) takes place after Route A/B where you play as 9S and A2.

Just about any fetch quest you accept will cause your Pod to detect and mark a place where the game spawns enemies that are guaranteed to drop the items you need. Not only is the area usually not far off from the quest-giver, this also means that you won't have to waste some of the rarer resources in your possession.

After the Bunker becomes inaccessible in Route C/D/E, if you die as A2 or 9S, you don't have to worry about losing and retrieving your chips and dead body. You do, however, need to remember to save often since you're forced to reload a save file if that happens so it evens itself out.

Easy Mode and its various auto-X chips are this. The Auto-Evade chip alone makes the active character virtually impossible to kill because they automatically and successfully dodge almost all incoming attacks. It's made even easier by the lack of any difficulty-related achievements/trophies. The only instance you'll have to beat without their support is, unfortunately, the Nintendo HardBullet Hell segment to unlock Ending E.

Once a couple of good Drop Up booster chips are installed, enemies start dropping insane amounts of loot that becomes a real chore to pick up one by one. Popping in an Auto-Collect chip removes this headache quite nicely.

Beating the game the first time will get the player a message from Square Enix explaining that they've only completed Route A, and that there are multiple routes to explore, for newcomers wondering why the game is so short and why the Final Boss was only level 30.

The Anti-Nihilist: Ending E tries to invoke the player into this role, having you each time you die in the Nintendo HardBullet Hell answer "NO" to questions like "GIVE UP HERE?", "IS IT ALL POINTLESS?", "DO YOU THINK GAMES ARE SILLY LITTLE THINGS?", "DO YOU ADMIT THERE IS NO MEANING TO THIS WORLD?" to continue, as messages other players of the game all over the world have left tell you that You Are Not Alone and to not give up.

Apocalypse How: Caused by an invasion of aliens who created the machine lifeforms to do their dirty work, forcing the remaining humans to flee to the Moon. Considering it's a continuation of the first Nier, humanity was wiped out by the White Chlorination Syndrome and the survivors became Shades, whose corporeal forms were eventually destroyed by the death of the Shadowlord. As of Automata, the only remains of humanity exist as DNA information and memories on the moon.

Arc Number: In the "Deserving of Life" music video, the numbers 1728 crop up quite frequently and are associated with emotions.

Are You Sure You Want to Do That?: Upon achieving Ending E, you are given the choice to send help to another player struggling with the final Bullet Hell sequence. Beforehand, however, you are warned that consenting to send aid would mean erasing all of your save data. This includes losing access to Chapter Select and Debug Mode until you unlock them again in a subsequent playthrough, and having no say over who receives your aid; the player you help is chosen at random, and you are warned that it may even be someone you don't even like. You are asked multiple times if you wish to go through with the sacrifice you would have to make to help others.

Artifact Title: Despite taking place in the same world as NieR, Nier himself is long dead. Virtually none of the characters from said first game appear in this one aside from Emil, Devola and Popola. Since the last living Replicant passes in the year 4198, it's clear that the definition of what is considered "human" be in question. Ultimately many of the events of the story are the product of Nier's actions in the previous game, with the alien invasion being the exception..

Artistic License  Physics: Despite it being stated with relatively little significance, the sun apparently never sets. This would rapidly render the sun-exposed portion of the planet inhospitable, to say the least. Also being a Call-Back to the first game the Earth had been locked this way for thousand of years.

Grün, far and away the largest enemy in the game, has armor and shielding so strong that not even a direct hit from a YoRHa Kill Sat deals it any damage worth mentioning. Its only weak points are the EMP generators on its back that create its anti-laser shields, and its gaping maw. 2B and 9S make good use of all of them, to spectacular effect.

Most regular enemies and even most bosses largely avert this trope, with the exception of Goliath Bipeds that take significantly more damage from hits to the torso than to the limbs, and the large flying snake machines with their big, glowing middle segment. The Killer Rabbit at the amusement park is extremely vulnerable to 9S' hacking, but that is true for any machine lifeform, so it doesn't really count.

Auto-Revive: With a Reset chip equipped, you have a chance to revive when you run out of HP.

Award-Bait Song: "Weight of the World", which plays over the end credits. It starts off low-key, gets more uplifting as it goes on, and covers a broad theme of a person shouldering the burden of many.

Awful Truth: Quite a few actually, and all of which can be found mentioned under The Reveal. 9S, as the one to learn all these truths is the one who ends up broken by the knowledge, combined with his other traumatic situations on Route C/D/E.

The amnesiac Resistance member is revealed to be a YoRHa E-Type unit, who has deleted her memories due to being unable to deal with her guilt. When she remembers, she reveals her original self has gone insane from years of killing friends and lovers, taking pleasure in murder.

As 9S's sanity breaks down further and further the more truths are revealed to him, the worse his psychological state deteriorates. Even Pod 153 expresses severe concern over his mental state. By the time he faces off against A2, he has the same telltale red eyes of madness as hostile machines due to being infected by the Logic Virus (again).

Backstory: The events of the YoRHa stage play happens before the events of Automata and goes into the suicide mission A2 and her companions took. It reveals several key elements of the story that aren't revealed until later in the game.

Bag of Sharing: All three protagonists share the same inventory across time and space. It doesn't matter where they are, whom they're with, if they're currently enemies or not, or if they're reliving previous parts of their adventure (via chapter select) - their inventory only improves, never resets.

Bag of Spilling: A very minor example for 2B who loses one of her swords, Virtuous Treaty, after the prologue mission. It's so minor because recovering it is so easy - it's basically around the corner of where she and 9S make planetfall again, near the Abandoned Factory where the Engels previously smashed the huge pier apart from below during his Boss Battle.

Additionally, after Adam's birth, he is shown fully naked and with no features on either side.

Side materials confirm Androids when activated are not built with genitalia. The android can later ask for it to be built in.

Batter Up!: Unusual example. The player can combo the sword with the knuckles and use the blade as a giant bat to send one of the knuckles flying at an enemy.

Beat: When 9S is getting more unstable after discovering YoRHa androids' black box is made from machine cores, Pod 042 and 153 discuss doing something about that...then take a silent moment before saying they're not really sure how to fix that aside from having him get some simple rest and repairs.

Becoming the Mask: The machines created machine fish to wipe out aquatic life. Eventually these machines began acting like living fish until they became incorporated into schools. Machine fish can also be caught while fishing.

Behemoth Battle: It doesn't get much more behemothy than two 500-foot Engels-class Goliaths smashing each other apart in close combat.

Better to Die than Be Killed: Happens rather tragically with the child machines in Pascal's care. Faced with the prospect of horrible death by way of cannibal machines, they destroy their own cores out of fear that Pascal and A2 may not be able to protect them.

When Grün attacks, the huge android aircraft carrier it destroys can be seen toting gigantic twin-barrelled weapon emplacements on its upper deck. Unfortunately, it never gets to use them. 9S then utilizes a building-sized coastal gun he calls a mortar (actually a flat trajectory artillery piece more akin to a howitzer) in an attempt to take down Grün by aiming for its gaping maw.

The YoRHa flight units' mounted guns are larger than their pilots, and almost as long as the flyer itself.

Most guns used by machine lifeforms are vastly oversized for the frame that's wielding them. On units like small stubbies and small spheres they make up half or more of their total size, and both of them should constantly fall over due to the gross imbalance of their design.

The guns of medium bipeds are a more subdued example compared to the above, but still almost as large as any of the protagonists.

The "Large Sword" category is entirely about titanic blades, from odachi to greatswords to axes. Of note: the surfboard-sized franchise favorite Iron Will, now completely rusted over and blunt after millennia, although its blade is significantly shorter than its previous incarnation.

The tail of any YoRHa flight unit is actually a giant sword that can be deployed against airborne threats to devastating effect, even in mid-flight at high speed.

Biblical Motifs: Adam and Eve. The machine's greatest creations are Adam and Eve, who misinterpret the Bible into thinking they can gain intelligence from eating apples.

During Ending E you eventually reach a point where your singular ship can't break through the enemy bullets. When you are destroyed, messages from other players begin to appear, and you are offered help from another player. If you accept, other ships fly in to surround you and massively increase your firepower. Upon completion you can make your own data available to help someone else in the same position.

Subverted a bit more than midway through the game. 2B, struggling to resist the Logic Virus, comes under attack just as she reaches the mall where she might be able to quarantine herself. A2 appears out of nowhere and helps dispatch the enemies singlehandedly... but it's too late. 2B has almost completely succumbed to the Virus, and the most A2 can offer is a Mercy Kill just as 9S arrives on the scene...

Bilingual Bonus: The name of the joke ending K, "Aji wo [K]utta", has a double meaning of sorts: as the android dies from eating the mackerel, they also comment how they like the taste and understand why humans ate them. The phrase in question can be read both as "I ate a mackerel" as well as "I experienced a flavor" in Japanese.

The female member of the Wandering Couple has had her boyfriend reformatted and reprogramed to suit her whims multiple times, all the while using the situations they find them in to convince him to do it.

11B's Mementos reveals 16D is this. If 2B chooses to reveal 11B's failed plan to desert her post at YoRHa, 16D ends up laughing at how 11B died in pain and completely alone, seeing it as karma for all the abuse she heaped on 16D due to her status as a non-combat YoRHa-type model.

Bittersweet Ending: Ending E. Unfortunately the world is still in ruins, and the Bunker, along with most YoRHa units, was destroyed. Further, the android leadership may decide to create another generation of potentially disposible androids, and there is a chance another antagonistic Machine Lifeform network will emerge based on the Emil Heads weapon story, though both sides show the capability to Grow Beyond Their Programming by the end of the game. On the positive side, 2B, 9S, and A2 are rebuilt with their memories intact and are finally free from the machinations of both the Bunker and the Terminals. In addition, while Pod-153 worries that history might repeat itself because of the fact that the three have all of their memories and experiences intact, Pod-042 admits that while he cannot deny that scenario could possibly happen, he still expresses hope that the three protagonists have the capacity to defy repeating their mistakes and forge their own future.

Blade on a Stick: Spears are one of the four weapon classes available to the protagonists. They're generally slower than swords and tend to have lower combo counts, but they make up for it with longer reach and noticeably higher base damage ratings.

Blind Weaponmaster: As depicted in the YoRHastage play, all YoRHa androids are equipped with a "visor" or "goggle" system that appears like a blindfold. This is actually a technical piece of equipment that they use in battle. When they are not engaged in battle, there is little use or purpose to wear it; however, some androids choose to keep it on, only removing it for poignant moments in the story.

Block Puzzle: The "Sorting Trouble" series of quests have you moving boxes around in order to reach the requested boxes.

Book-Ends: "Everything that lives is designed to end. We are trapped in a never-ending cycle of life and death." First said by 2B at the beginning of the game, and then by Pod 153 in Ending E, the 'last' main ending.

The machine Father Servo being the most recurring, he becomes stronger with the materials 2B and 9S bring until he's level 60 in his final fight.

The Amusement Park has the level 80 bunny machine statue, which is actually a machine living as a statue until he's forced to protect himself.

A particularly strong machine, the Lord of the Valley from the eponymous quest, can be found at the end of the forest valley, impaled on multiple swords and asking for death. You can oblige him, but he is really tough early game since he's set at level 60.

Emil is a level 99 fight, found underground where he attempts to punish his android friends for trying to steal from him. The Emil Head weapon is earned upon his defeat.

After beating Emil and upgrading all weapons, a final battle against a group of insane Emil copies will occur in the desert. Failing to stop them from self-destructing when they are defeated results in Ending Y.

A DLC has you fighting Yosuke Matsuda and Kenichi Sato, the CEOs of Square Enix and Platinum respectively.

The aforementioned DLC also has Masamune the blacksmith appear as a bonus boss, as well as a special gauntlet at the end of the Flooded City coliseum that ultimately ends in a couple of enemies labeled "Unknown", but look suspiciously like Shades from the first NieR...

The Laser, due to being a Hitscan pod program with long range and punch-through capability. The fact that Mana system from the original Nier is replaced with cooldown timer helps a lot too, meaning there is no reason whatsoever to not keep firing it in combat.

9S's hacking ability gets boring real fast due to how easy and how damn good it is. Combat in the entire playthrough becomes utterly trivial if you're decent at twin-stick Shoot 'em Up.

Pod C is made of this. It fires missiles that automatically home in on targets. All you have to do is point your camera in the general direction of the enemies and hold down the fire button.

2B's starting weapons — Virtuous Contract and Virtuous Treaty — are just as powerful as almost any other example of their respective categories (some have higher raw damage, but most of those pay for it with lower combo counts). Their special abilities are also quite useful.

Throwing your spear with charge attack hits just as hard as normal attacks, which allows you to cheese most fights from a distance without having to deal with Pod weapons' inaccurate Cherry Tapping.

Bottomless Magazines: Ranged weapons in this game need neither reloading nor ammo in the first place.

If you die in combat during gameplay, you can leave a personalized message for any players that stumble upon your corpse.

In Ending D, hacking into A2 consecutive times results in 9S hacking into her Main Menu, the same one players use regularly throughout the game.

In Ending E, the pods take turns addressing you, first to ask if you want to send a message to others who may be struggling during the credits fight, and then to ask if you want to help a random player in exchange for all your save data.

When you meet Emil again, he is without a body. Later revealed to be a quirk all Emil clones share.

Ending B's title, "Or not to [B]e", as well as 2B's name itself, later reveals itself to be a bad pun, as 2B is not, in fact, 2B, but actually 2E.

Bullet Hell: The danmaku elements from the first game make a return in this game. Bosses in particular use all kinds of complex patterns as part of their attacks.

Bullet Time: With the Overclock chip equipped time drastically slows down for a few seconds when you execute a perfect dodge. The Evasion System chip also significantly slows down time when you're in the proximity of projectiles, making it easier to dodge them.

But Thou Must!: In terms of "you must listen to what the game wants you to hear in full no matter what". You're free to attack bosses like Adam and Eve with everything you have the moment their respective battle begins, but no matter how over-levelled your character is, you can't kill them until they've finished their lengthy Evil Gloating or Expo Speak. Every time you bring their health down to near zero, they'll just teleport away and come at you again with their health bar refilled. Alternatively, they'll just become invincible until the conditions to proceed are met. Other enemies are completely unkillable by default to ensure cutscenes play out as intended regardless of player skills or auto-chip usage.

The report Gestalt documents sums up the consequences of the previous game (even adding the info only available in Grimoire Nier and becomes a plot point behind Popola and Devola's Heroic Sacrifice in the late game.

When accessing the Tower at the end of the game, Devola and Popola confront you, weapons at the ready, stating that they have been expecting you. But this time, they're not trying to stop the protagonist from entering, they're buying him time so he can go ahead. They even get a final reprise of their theme song, "Song of the Ancients - Atonement".

The Lunar Tear, the flower that can grant all wishes, returns. Finding the Lunar Tears scattered across the land will help Emil restore his memories.

When entering the Tower's data storage facility, it is constructed as a perfect —if pure-white— replica of Popola's Library, right down to the placement of the ladders. Popola's office includes replicas of her houseplants, and the Trophy Room across the stairs displays effigies of all the bosses you've defeated. The boss Ro-Shi even crashes through the ceiling the same way the Knave of Hearts did during that battle.

Canon Immigrant: A2, Anemone and the Terminal originate from the YoRHa stage play, which was also written by Taro Yoko.

Cap: There's a limit to how much certain attributes can be boosted. For example, your movement speed can only be increased by 20%, and your drop rate 90%. Character level for friend and foe alike is capped at 99, as is the amount of items of any given kind that the protagonists can carry. Plug-in chips can't be fused past level 8.

Captain Obvious Reveal: Admittingly only one to players who finished NieR. At the end of Route B, 9S and the audience learn that humanity has been extinct for a long time. For players jumping in at Automata, this is no doubt a big spoiler, but for people who played the original, it shouldn't be a surprise as they played through the events that caused the extinction of humanity.

Cast Full of Gay: It's implied that some of the female YoRHa androids are in relationships with each other. This makes a bit of sense given that male YoRHa androids are a relatively recent development. Not so much for the Resistance, though, as the male/female ratio among them is more balanced. This is due to androids not really viewing gender the way humans do, favoring compatible personalities over gender.

Natsuki Hanae previously voiced a cheery optimistic young man who after revelation upon revelation goes mad and gains red eyes later down the road. Sounds like 9S, or Ken Kaneki to you?

And once again, Joji Nakata serves as the voice of something ancient, sinister and powerful in the shape of a young girl in red.

Censor Box: A largely humorous example. Every time the Dress Module is used to remove/re-add parts of a protagonist's clothes, their pod summons a black curtain out of nowhere and holds it so that its master's changing can't be observed.

Central Theme: The game repeatedly explores concepts of Existentialism. Specifically, the game questions how one should live in an uncaring, random world where those you care about, the current meaning you've found in your life, and even your percieved identity can be taken from you at any moment. Can life still have meaning when all meaning is seemingly lost?

Multiple side quests involve showing Machine Lifeforms who believe they exist to be the best at something, such as the greatest martial artist or fastest alive, that you are in fact better than them. Realizing they will never accomplish the task they devoted their life to, many decide to self-destruct, or force you to kill them, as their life is now seemingly meaningless.

The Songstress, unable to earn the affections of the one she loved, decided to double down her purpose in life to become beautiful, even though it would never earn her the love she sought. This eventually leaves her an insane, mass-murdering monstrosity.

The Forest Kingdom, who found purpose in serving their king, are unable to move past their given purpose after their King sacrifices himself for them, pointlessly serving a new "baby" king that will never grow or help them to change.

A2's backstory involves her finding out as a prototype she and all her friends where designed to be replaced with "better" production models, sent on a Suicide Mission no one was expected to survive. She ends up being the only survivor, and spends decades unsure what her purpose should be beyond killing more machines.

The androids and machines are both revealed to no longer be able carry out their original purposes as the humans and aliens they were each supposed to serve are long dead.

The nature of individuality and identity. Both the machines and YorHa androids have almost nothing distinguishing them from others of the same kind physically, and establishing one's individuality begins from internal psychological processes. Related to the above theme of purpose, many machines assign roles to themselves and paint markings on their shells to denote this, with names like "Mother Machine" and "Scientist Machine", even forming family groups seemingly arbitrarily. The connection between memory and identity is also explored, with several instances where some part of an android's memory is erased or restored, and how this changes one's personality. During the plot, both the androids and machines lose the networks which connect all their minds together, thus pushing them further towards individuality, until the machines create a new network several hundred years later..

Route C has the majority of the characters you've come to know killed in the opening act. You also learn that this was by design of your superiors, to cover up a ruse to attempt to give new meaning to androids. And, the YoRHa are revealed to all essentially be repackaged Machine Lifeforms, meaning there is no inherent difference between you and your "enemies".

Ending E has you, after you have lost all meaning to your actions, everyone you had followed through the game, and all the truths you had once believed, essentially embark on an impossible Suicide Mission to at least bring back the main characters, even though you'll never succeed on your own. However, you are given messages from other players of the game not to give up. And, after you have refused to accept the seeming nihilism of the situation for long enough, other players who have sacrificed all their progress in the game, by deleting their own save data, come to help you at last succeed.

Holding down a weapon attack button usually gives off a different attack.

Once you get more pods you can charge up a pod program to increase its effectiveness.

The Pod's regular attack gains a charge mode when upgraded to Level 2.

Chekhov's Gun: The three Goliath-class Engels units that emerge at the end of the prologue mission. One of them shows up again in the City Ruins midway through Route A/B, and its destruction opens up a crater that leads to the crashed alien mothership. The other two Engels reappear in Route C during the siege at the Abandoned Factory when Pascal takes control of one and uses it to fight off the machine army as well as the third Engels.

The little brother machine pouring liquid on his big brother machine appears at the beginning of Route B and during the intro of Route C. After 9S defeats 21O, the two machines reappear as a boss fight for A2: Friedrich (the little brother) and Auguste (the big brother).

Devola and Popola can be spotted in the background of the Resistance Camp long before their actual involvement in the plot.

The Terminals make several brief Freeze-Frame Bonus appearances during Route B. Only much later, far into Route C, are their identity and purpose finally revealed.

Clockwork Creature: While it's never explained exactly how the machine lifeforms' inner systems work, a great many of their unit types look like adorable wind-up toys straight out of some Clock Punk setting. All that's missing is the Wind-Up Key in their back.

Clothing Damage: Depending on how much damage she takes, 2B loses her Dangerously Short Skirt and show a white Leotard of Power. Similarly, 9S loses his cargo pants and ends up in shorts under his jacket. It is possible for the player to inflict this on them using the "Self Destruct" command. It is also possible to purchase an expansion that, when equipped, prevents any sort of damage to their clothing...or alternately, takes it off at will.

Clown Species: The Machine Lifeforms at the Amusement Park since becoming disconnected from the Machine Network have adopted a culture of festivity and revelry, adopting clown clothes and make-up and spending their time partying with balloons and confetti. Even when the Logic Virus reduces them to zombies, they are considerably more pacifistic than other infected machines.

Clueless Chick Magnet: Jean-Paul/Sartre has a lot of fangirls even if he is too busy rambling about existentialism to care about any of them. This turns out to have dire consequences as Simone/Beauvoir goes crazy for him and is Driven to Madness before she realizes Sartre is simply not into romance.

Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The eyes of the machine lifeforms have different colors depending on their disposition. Red is hostile, Yellow is passive unless attacked, and Green is friendly.

Commonplace Rare: Simple Gadgets are the stuff you need twenty units of to upgrade Pods A and C. Between them and the higher-tier Elaborate Gadgets and Complex Gadgets, Simple Gadgets are actually the most difficult to acquire. Most of those one can find in the open world are hidden items that need to be tracked down in unmarked, often out-of-the-way locations with the Scanner pod program, and most of the rest are either exceedingly rare random drops at fixed spots or quest rewards.

Constantly Curious: The Little Sister Machine spends every free moment of her escort mission asking you questions about how the world works.

Contemplate Our Navels: The Wise Machine is often found in high locations contemplating the meaning of his existence, which in turn causes 9S to contemplate his own existence during that questline.

If you die, all of your equipped chips are left at your corpse and you have to retrieve them. If you die again before you get your chips back, they're gone for good.

The game stresses a few times that there are no auto-saves. This is especially important in the second part, when the Bunker is destroyed. Die any time after that and your options are to load a save file or return to the title screen.

Emil first appears in the game as just a head, which is the state he was left in at the end of NieR.

Most of the weapons are inherited directly from Automata's predecessor, even if Iron Will itself has lost a significant part of its original length.

Popola and Devola return, or to be more exact, different models of the Popola and Devola line of androids, and they're perfectly aware of the actions of the Popola and Devola from Nier's village.

The Desert Zone is what remains of Facade. You can even find artifacts from that civilization, and the machine lifeforms dwelling there have styled their attire after the Masked King's particular mask and robe.

Emil has moved Kaine's home to a perfectly preserved sanctuary filled with Lunar Tears, from her austere bed to her childhood painting of her grandmother. The BGM for this place is "Kaine - Salvation".

Controllable Helplessness: 2B's final playable segment has you crippled by the Logic Virus. Your systems continually break down as the virus spreads, and all you can do is limp from the flooded city all the way to the mall.

Cool Sword: The bread-and-butter weapon of all protagonists, about two dozen of them in all sizes and flavors. Their base damage within their respective classes is fairly similar overall, but they differ in their special abilities that unlock at weapon level 3 and 4.

The Corruption: The Logic Virus turns androids and machine into frenzied killing robots.

Counter Attack: The counter chip gives you the ability to counter enemy attacks by pressing forward just before you get hit.

Creative Closing Credits: The credits are actually the game's Final Boss in a Shoot 'em Up segment required to get the final ending, with another variation of the Weight of the World song playing through it starting with 8-bit notes followed by alternating with English, Japanese and Chaos versions and the development studio's staff all singing a chorus to it.

Crush. Kill. Destroy!: One of the first machine lifeforms to speak simply utters one word over and over again, "Kill".

It's neither particularly difficult nor time-consuming to grind your characters' level all the way up to the cap of 99; the first half of Route B provides everything that's required to pull it off. Thing is, the machine lifeforms scale their level by region and route (A, B, or C) instead of levelling with the player. Since even the Final Boss of Route C tops out at level 45 and even a few levels more or less make quite a difference in combat, any level 99 player with a basic grasp of the combat mechanics who isn't playing on the highest difficulty setting can easily steamroll through the rest of the game without encountering any opposition worth mentioning. Only the top-tier Bonus Bosses can still pose a challenge.

Cute Machines: The smaller machine lifeforms look downright adorable, what with their huge spherical heads, plump bodies and stubby limbs. Chief among them are the machine babies, which are little more than metal eggs the size of a child's torso with two yellow eyes and a big screw for a pacifier.

Cutting Off the Branches: The 5th story of the Nier Concert recital confirms ending D followed by ending E over ending C.

Cycle of Revenge: A major theme, as the Forever War has left both androids and machines with plenty of dead friends and vengeful feelings. One particular sidequest has the player helping a Resistance member look for a missing comrade, only to find them dead at the hands of a particularly vengeful machine lifeform. Even after killing said enemy, if you the Resistance member the truth about what happened to her friend, she'll disappear from the camp, weapon-in-hand, in search of further revenge.

There are three encounters with gold variants of normal enemies in certain spots. They have the same abilities as their regular variants, except they take scratch damage from all attacks. This is especially pronounced with their leader, which is the weakest form of enemy yet takes twice as long to kill as the minions it commands.

The hidden boss of the amusement park, the Golden Bunny, telegraphs all its attacks and is easy to avoid. However, at level 80, killing it takes forever and a day. It drops a lot of experience when killed, making it well worth the effort. And it's repeatable.

Dangerously Short Skirt: 2B wears a dress that reaches to her thighs, and she slashes and flips around like it was nothing.

Darkest Hour: Route C/D in general. The Bunker is destroyed, nearly all the surviving YoRHa units have been infected and turned by the Logic Virus, and 2B is Mercy Killed by A2 (while 9S watches) before she can be turned as well. The fate of the world now rests on an incredibly jaded and bitter A2, and 9S, who's slowly becoming insane, violent and suicidal with grief. And for most of the remainder of the game, it doesn't get much better, with the genocide of Pascal's village (and Pascal himself falling over the Despair Event Horizon) and what's left of 9S' sanity finally breaking under the machine network's psychological torture and the revelation that YoRHa was created to be disposable.

Dark Is Not Evil: YoRHa android outfits are almost exclusively black, be it Powered Armor or the protagonists' goth-vibe clothes. Their blindfold-like combat visors add another layer of sinisterness on top, yet none of them can honestly be called evil. They're merciless Killer Robots chock-full of Fantastic Racism, yes, but that's quite understandable after millennia of ceaseless warfare against an equally merciless foe, and, regardless of their means, they're still fighting for nothing but humanity's survival and eventual return to Earth.

Dead All Along: The human race, and the invading alien race, are already dead, humanity by the events of the first game, the aliens by their own machines. However, the human genome and their collected memories are stored on a data center on the moon.

As 2B is an android, she has a practically infinite amount of spare replacement models waiting on the Bunker. Should the model she's currently using be destroyed, her memory and skills get transferred to a different model that gets sent back down to Earth. However, she loses equipment and plug-in chips that she had on her old model; if she wants to get them back, she has to find her old body where she died.

Averted during the second half of the game, where the Bunker becomes inaccessible due to the Logic Virus. If you die as 9S or A2 during those times, you have to reload a save file.

Deliberately Monochrome: Whenever the player is at the Bunker. This extends even to cutscenes such as the Commander's speech to the androids about how they will launch a full-scale assault against the machines in order to finally retake Earth during the beginning of Route C. This color scheme also highlights events such as the Alien warning system, which flashes bright red on the black-and-white Command screens.

Despair Speech: 9S gives a small one during the final battle. Notably, he only gives it if you control him, if you control A2, neither character says anything.

Developers' Foresight: 9S will briefly question 2B should the player purposefully avoid fighting a Tank Goliath in the Amusement Park the first time.

2B will notice when the camera is aimed up her skirt, and will push it to another position after a few seconds.

Difficult, but Awesome: Manually aiming your pod is, for obvious reasons, much more difficult than relying on lock on (on top of the fact that, in this game built for a controller, you'll be aiming with controls that are nowhere near as precise as the likes of a mouse). That said, shots fire in a straight line when manually aiming (as opposed to the bullet spread at higher distances that's caused by shooting while locked on), and it's the only way to aim your shots on higher difficulties.

Difficulty Spike: Route C is when the game starts introducing enemies that can attack with EMP blasts, which disable certain functions like attacking or dodging, as well as introducing especially tough bosses like Hegel and including the infected YoRHa troops among the rank-and-file enemies, who fight just as well as the player can (minus the pod functions.) The destruction of the Bunker early in the route also means Final Death is enforced from that point on, which makes saving your game regularly more important than ever.

Disc-One Final Boss: Adam and Eve serve as this for the game as a whole. They are the main antagonists for the A and B routes. Their defeat unlocks the second half of the story as well as the reveal of the game's true villains, Terminal α and Terminal β.

Routes A/B and C/D each have their own:

Between Adam and Eve, the former is treated as the de facto leader of the two, with the latter acting as The Dragon. Adam's death leads to a distraught Eve going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.

In the C/D Route, the Terminals reveal themselves to be the game's true Big Bad. With that said, they are defeated midway through The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, leaving a deranged, vengeful 9S as the game's Final Boss (unless you choose to play as him).

Disposable Woman: The entire YoRHa series was meant to be this. The Stage Play portrays them as all female; only the newest and most advanced models of the S-Type are male.

Domestic Abuse: The female half of the Wandering Couple tricks both the protagonists and her partner into reformatting his memories so she can reprogram him as she sees fit - character and abilities included. She even nonchalantly tells 2B and 9S that she's done it another six times before without him having any recollection of any of it.

Double Jump: 2B and her crew can do double jumps, just like Nier in the original game. By catching the Pod to glide, then pressing Jump + Light Attack, they can boost themselves up a third time with a small Pod-guided spin kick.

Downer Beginning: The prologue ends with 2B and 9S self-destructing to take down a couple of Goliath-class machine lifeforms, when the fight with only one of them was enough to put 9S in critical condition and exhausted 2B. Granted, they simply get put into new bodies as it shows that destroying their bodies is largely inconsequential. 9S however wasn't able to back up his data in time and has to reintroduce himself to 2B.

The beginning of the second half of the game is this big time. The machines utilize the backdoor in the Bunker and infect all the YoRHa androids with the Logic Virus, including 2B and 9S. Soon after, the Bunker (along with the Commander and all the androids in the Bunker that haven't been killed by 2B and 9S on the way to the hangar) is destroyed. And of course, the real cherry on top is 2B on the receiving side of a Mercy Kill from A2—with 9S as a witness. It gets worse from there.

The Wise Machine doesn't like its philosophical pondering's conclusions and jumps off a high tower.

The Speed Machine self-destructs at the end of its quest line.

The Lord of the Valley chooses the Suicide by Cop method to go out in one last blaze of glory.

A veritable army of machine nutjobs eventually forms an Apocalypse Cult that quickly ends up self-destructing when the majority of its members kill themselves in droves for religious reasons.

Pascal's machine children commit suicide by the dozen out of overwhelming fear, which in turn results in Pascal himself begging A2 to either memory-wipe or kill him. How that pans out is up to the player.

Drop the Hammer: One of the Pods' abilities is the "Hammer", which summons giant floating hammers. This is essentially Grimoire Weiss's "Dark Hand" move from the original game.

Dual Wielding: A few machine lifeform types do this, most notably the Engels with their rotary excavators and the small machines with axes. 2B and A2 can get in on the fun by rapidly chaining light and heavy melee attacks together.

Dub Name Change: A couple of characters had to get their names altered from the Japanese version to the English version because of copyright issues, most notably Sartre and Beauvoir, who got their names changed to Jean-Paul and Simone to keep the theme of their names in place.

Dueling Player Characters: Early on in Route A/B, you fight A2, who becomes a player character in the later parts. The final battle of the game has you controlling either A2 or 9S as they square off against each other, with your ending depending on who you choose.

The final battle of routes C and D is a duel between 9S and A2. The winner is determined by which one you choose to control.

After Father Servo gets fully upgraded, he asks you to fight him to the death, as a final test of who's truly strongest.

Dutch Angle: In the cutscene where the religious robots realize how to "become as gods", the camera turns sideways and even upside down to highlight their growing madness.

Dysfunction Junction: Both androids and machines are starting to feel emotions that they weren't built to feel in the first place and their increasing self-awareness lead them to trying to cope with their places in the world and an obsession with becoming human.

Early Game Hell: If you play on Hard mode this trope is especially prevalent in the opening chapter. Because the damage values are so inflated, the bosses of the area can wipe you out in two hits at most, and it doesn't help that the opening section doesn't have any save spots or checkpoints, meaning that if you fail it will take you all the way back to the beginning of the game.

Earn Your Happy Ending: Players must play from Ending A through to Ending E to get the best, true ending. This involves playing through two viewpoints of Ending A, both sides in the Final Battle for ending C and D, and a Nintendo Hard hacking section against the credits of the game, which constantly taunts the player to just give up. Also, over the course of the story, a majority of the main cast has been killed, including all three of the main protagonists. And, with YoRHa dead, the pods are programmed to mark the YoRHa project complete and erase all of their records. However, if you do all of the above, the main protagonist's pods are inspired by their experiences over the course of the game and go against their programming. Instead, they rebuild 2B, 9S and A2, bringing the three back for a second chance at life in a world where the machine threat is over for several hundred years and the proxy war is finished. And while the world is still in ruins, The main cast are now free to embrace their emotions and find their own meanings in life.

11th-Hour Superpower: During the final sequence before the best ending, if you decide to persevere despite the odds, eventually, options surround you, representing the sacrificed saves of other players, and make you more powerful, and basically invincible, while you finish the fight against the game's credits.

Elite Mook: There are red-and-black painted enemies that are stronger than their standard counterparts, designated "Enhanced Machines", and on top of that golden versions that have absurd amounts of health, even at low levels. The gold machines are also the only machines that will drop certain parts needed to upgrade the Pods with, so if players want to utilize the Pods' capabilities fully, they'll need to take these machines down.

EMP: For all their incredibly advanced robotics and AI technology, YoRHa androids are still extremely vulnerable to EMPs. It bites them in the ass a couple times throughout the story.

The Ending Changes Everything: Boy does it ever. Specifically, almost every bit of dialogue and interaction between 2B and 9S from the beginning of the game to the end has to be re-evaluated with new context.

The "Twisted Religion" mission, when 2B and Pascal find themselves trapped in the Abandoned Factory with an insane machine Apocalypse Cult and have to fight their way out, with some assistance from 9S's hacking.

Happens again in Route C when the Bunker is infected with the logic virus, all YoRHa units go insane, and 2B, 9S, and the Commander have to get to the Hangar to escape. The Commander doesn't make it.

Escort Mission: The Parade Escort sidequest. Surprisingly, the people being escorted don't act too stupid beyond the initial premise about having a parade promoting pacifism in the middle of a war zone. The real difficulty comes from the fact that the mission fails automatically if 2B and 9S get too far away from the parade — even if all immediate threats are removed and the player wants to deal with another group further ahead before they can attack the parade. Fortunately, the attackers give good experience and can drop level 3 weapon upgrade parts, so the mission is useful for grinding even if the repeated attempts needed to succeed can be frustrating.

Esoteric Happy Ending: Invoked and Discussed regarding the game's final ending, in which the pods state that in spite of the second chance all the protagonists get, they might waste it and repeat their mistakes. They still consider it an acceptable risk, believing that having been given the chance is better than not having gotten it at all.

Everything's Better with Spinning: There's a whole lot of awesome spinning in this game, from the protagonists spinning huge swords in combat or idle animations, to some machine lifeforms' spectacular Spin Attacks, to the Engels' gigantic weaponized rotary excavators, and more.

Eye Beam: A fairly common and equally dangerous weapon among particularly large or powerful enemies like Engels, Grün and the Emil clones.

Eye Lights Out: In the rare case of a machine lifeform not exploding upon death, this will most likely happen instead, with a much higher chance of occurrence in cutscenes. Adam and Eve are a notable exception due to their bodies' utter lack of mechanical features.

Eye Scream: The Engels in the prologue mission finally dies when 2B drives her sword into its eye.

Eyes Do Not Belong There: Or, should we say, heads do not belong there. The taller humanoid machine lifeforms have multiple heads: one on top (as per usual), two on the arms (one each), and one in the crotch.

Evolutionary Levels: The machines have adapted over the generations and evolved beyond their initial state by fighting the androids, which the Terminals intended, while also making sure they couldn't defeat their enemy in spite of their evolution. YoRHa, likewise, is the most advance series of androids made with data gathered through conflict with the machines. The S-Types, 9S specifically, stand as the pinnacle of current android technology, with Adam and Eve as the machines' equivalent.

Experience Booster: EXP Gain Up chips increase the experience you gain by a certain percentage, capping at 100%.

Failure Is the Only Option: The entire war is this. The backdoor into the Bunker mainframe makes it impossible for YoRHa to win, as, if they ever get the upper hand, the Terminals can use it to upload the Logic Virus and destroy them. At the same time, the Terminals carefully balance the war so that it's impossible for the androids to lose, as the continuing conflict is necessary to spur both sides' technological advancement towards a state of "humanity".

2B's and 9S' first fight against Adam ends with both of them running him through with their swords in fountains of blood, accompanied by lots of screaming and gasping.

Adam's second boss battle results in 2B impaling him through the stomach (again) before ripping her sword sideways until it exits from his flank and he collapses to bleed out on the floor.

Eve is killed by 2B ramming her shattered katana through his head from above while he's kneeling before her.

2B herself and A2 get relatively clean and painless deaths, which just serves to make 9S' agonizing demise in Ending D shortly afterwards all the more horrifying.

Before it comes to this, we get to witness 9S viciously eviscerating a hostile (and already dead) 2B android in blind fury, and then A2 doing largely the same to Operator 21O.

Pascal's machine children commit suicide in numbers by running themselves through with crude swords larger than themselves.

Fantastic Drug: E-Drugs, which some NPC androids are addicted to and which exists as an useable item that causes a number of video and audio glitches, like tinting the entire screen various colors or giving it a wavy underwater filter, giving it a low bitrate filter, squashing the screen dimensions so that it resembles an old CRT TV, showing constant flickering garbage at the edges of the screen, changing the music to its 8-bit renditions and distorting the sound effects. It also happens to spare the NPCs doped from it from Logic Virus infection, apparently.

9S considers the machines to be just that, constantly and loudly insisting that any display of cognizance their targets display is just them parroting human recordings without understanding.

After the Popola and Devola of the first game accidentally doomed humanity to extinction when their master plan failed, other androids on Earth began shunning all other Popola and Devola models, even though the originals were uniquely flawed and no other models did anything wrong. Eventually, Twin Models were completely removed from the system.

The YoRHa model line was created in part using code and designs made by the aliens for their machine lifeforms, both for a practical reason of advancing android technology through data obtained from their black boxes (which contain the machine components) and that it was more "humane" to use non-human tech in the cyclical wars they helped to perpetuate to become more like their dead creators. This ends up being averted by androids in general, who didn't know YoRHa was made by their fellow androids to be sacrifices.

Fartillery: A strange, non-gaseous machine example. Biped Goliaths have a wide variety of attacks, one of which consists of the huge machine squatting down and farting either a fat red Death Ray or a dense Bullet Hell cloud at its target.

Final Boss Preview: Midway through routes A and B, you fight A2 after she kills the Forest King. Said character becomes the Final Boss of route D.

Final-Exam Boss: The penultimate bosses of endings C and D, Ko-Shi and Ro-Shi, involve you using melee combat as A2, flying a Flight Unit as 9S (and hacking it, if you so desire), and ends in A2 and 9S temporarily teaming up to duke it out with them (with the game periodically switching you between the two).

Devola and Popola are the ones who sent humanity's data to the server on the Moon to be stored in the hopes that it could be used to revive the extinct race, one day.

The machine network fired an Ark into the vastness of space, carrying the memories of machine lifeforms as well as their own ghost consciousness based on humanity. Whether they ever reach a destination or travel for eternity is not an issue for them. If he chooses to, 9S can accompany them.

Foe-Tossing Charge: Charging an enemy while riding a galloping moose deals a tremendeous amount of damage to the target and hurls all but the largest machines a considerable distance, usually right next into the closest obstacle behind them, with explosive results.

Forever War: Androids and machine lifeforms have been fighting for several thousand years and by the time of the story the 14th War has been waging for some time. This is by design on the androids' who created YoRHa and machines' part; when humanity went extinct, they were left without the creators they love, so when the aliens arrived, tried to claim the Earth and defeated Emil and his clones in their war against him, the androids convinced the rest of their kind that humans had fled to the moon, and then began launching raids on the aliens as their new cause. They even went so far as to put a self-destruct protocol in their latest soldiers just to cover up the fact everyone's fighting for nothing, as all that really matters to them is using data from previous generations to make more advanced ones. All in order to become the creators they long for. The machine network has known about it from day one and happily played the part so both sides would advance.

A2 finds records of animal, plant, human, and other such data in the Library. The first clue that the Terminals are building an ark. After all, why would a Tower that will fall apart after firing have such important data if it's just going to destroy the moon's server?

A small one during Route A. When you first enter the tunnel that leads to the elevator that'll take you to the Copied City, if you look closely at the dead android bodies, it seems they've all been crucified. A hint that a fight with Adam is coming up, although the player may not know it's him because they don't learn about how closely Adam follows the Bible until Route B. It's also a hint to the state 2B will find 9S in during her fight with Adam.

The hacking minigame interface for machine lifeforms and androids is exactly the same. It hints at what 9S discovers in the Soul Box, during Route C: YoRHa androids are made out of machine lifeform cores.

When 2B and 9S fight side-by-side, their attacks just pass harmlessly through each other. It's explicitly a plot point that YoRHa androids' programming prevents them from harming other YoRHa androids. When the rest of YoRHa gets infected with a logic virus, 9S has to hack 2B's programming to allow her to attack her former comrades.

When Pascal accompanies 2B on a few missions, he's also immune to her attacks, without any in-story justification.

Averted with the civilians in certain missions, like the robot apocalypse cult and the attack on Pascal's village. Hostile and non-hostile machines are all equally vulnerable, and they're mixed together to make it easier for you to accidentally kill the non-hostiles.

From Bad to Worse: The full-scale assault on the machines is an ever-increasingly horrific situation for 2B and 9S: the ground soldiers get infected with a logic virus. Then everyone on the Bunker gets infected. Then 2B gets infected. Then 2B dies, triggering 9S's downward spiral.

Full-Boar Action: Fish aside, there seems to be exactly two species of animals left in this world: moose, and boars. They're usually docile and can even be used as mounts, but they will defend themselves if provoked; some may also attack just for the hell of it. That's actually more dangerous than it sounds because moose and boars are the only (potential) enemies in the game that level with the protagonists, which in turn means a lone boar can easily wreck frontline battle androids that just curbstomped a 500-foot Humongous Mecha.

Machines in the amusement park perform their version of a Shakespeare play: Romeos and Juliets, which ends with three duplicates of Romeo and Juliet fighting to the death, and the last survivor self-destructing.

Adam reads the Biblical story of Adam and Eve for inspiration, and comes away convinced that humans used to eat fruit to increase their intelligence.

Dying isn't too much of a hassle since 2B and 9S can just upload their memories to the Bunker and reactivate in a new body, and this is reflected in gameplay where you can still continue your game, find your old body, and retrieve the equipment you left behind if you do die. This ability is gone in Route C when the Bunker is destroyed, and any deaths in Route C are an instant game over.

In the first boss fight against Adam, as a newborn, he continuously levels up from level 1 throughout the fight, reflecting that he gradually learns more and more about his surroundings.

The game's HUD is justified as a bunch of chips that can be inserted, and removed, as needed. Heck, if you don't mind less information, you can remove parts of the HUD to make space for more power-ups.

In Route C, when 2B is dying of the Logic Virus, when her Pod mentions that her visual sensors are damaged, the game actually looks distorted so you can have a taste of what's happening to her.

When 9S helps 2B reboot after the prologue mission, he does so by adjusting various settings in the player's actual game menu.

And when he eventually fights A2 in Route C, hacking into her often enough results in him hacking hermain menu as well.

Route B is explained as being route A but from 9S's perspective. However, the enemies are ~20 levels. This is due to 9S not being a combat model. He has to work much harder to fight the same enemies.

When 9S and 2B are together, the other uses the weapons that you equipped them with the last time you played as that character.

Despite death and respawns having in-universe explanations as noted above, cutscenes and story events reset upon your death, so if you died during a boss fight, you'll have to do the whole thing over again anyway.

9S explains that access points allow you to travel back to the Bunker by electronically transmitting your consciousness to a temporary copy body there. In spite of this, drawbacks of travel-via-mind-transfer (such as losing items you're carrying, or not being able to travel somewhere if there isn't a body to spare) never crop up, so the fast travel functions more like regular teleportation.

On the way to the Resistance base, 9S comments on how the machine lifeforms in the area aren't hostile and will only attack when attacked themselves. The exact same lines are repeated in Route B, when said enemies are decidedly more hostile and will attack on sight. In fact, 9S's playthrough has huge numbers of advanced enemies scattered everywhere that 2B's doesn't, despite ostensibly being the same story.

Some post-boss-battle cutscenes show your character battered and bruised, as if you barely defeated an overwhelming foe—even if you never took any damage during actual gameplay.

Generic Doomsday Villain: The aliens don't have any purpose other than building the machine lifeforms and giving the androids something to do after the Gestalt project's failure. Side materials reveal the aliens had the banal goal of colonizing earth as their objective.

Genre Shift: While the previous Drakengard games and NieR had a fantasy setting, this game is a science fiction piece set in the distant future.

Giant Flyer: The first boss A2 has to fight in the desert is a flying Goliath-class enemy that consists of about a dozen huge spheres forming a centipede-like entity. Its general makeup and combat style show up again later in the battle against the Emil clones, only much, much more dangerous. There are also smaller, yet still pretty huge Goliath-class flyers that make sporadic appearances during flight unit sequences.

Goal-Oriented Evolution: It isn't by luck the machines and androids Grew Beyond Their Programming: they share data of their experience, and, as long as their core and black boxes are intact, they can even come back from death with what they learned. Both groups choose humanity as their end goal, and so produce machines or androids that carry the emotions and complexity codes.

Go Mad from the Revelation: The amnesiac Resistance member investigating the murder of her friend in the "Amnesia" sidequest eventually discovers that not only did she murder them, but she's a YoRHA Executioner-class unit built to covertly eliminate traitors and deserters, but the guilt of executing her friend led to her erasing her memories. And this wasn't even the first time she'd executed a friend. The whole revelation completely breaks her and turns her Laughing Mad.

Good Colors, Evil Colors: Red and dark red are associated with villainous machines eyes, bullets and energy attacks. Green is used to show good machines and gold is used for bullets and energy attacks by androids and subjugated machines. It's played with in the case of Adam and Eve, as they also have gold energy based attacks like the androids but have red eyes. Eve then trades most of the light themed attacks for black and red as the final boss of A/B.

The Good King: The Forest King was this. The machines in the Forest area are ready to charge at you in large numbers to protect him. He built his kingdom like a familial home, giving out his own parts and circuitry to his subjects to help them achieve sentience. When this resulted in his body deteriorating and finally stopping, he was so loved that his subjects put his data in a robot baby to raise anew. Of course, being a robot, the baby never grew or was even able to talk but they still kept him as their king because he was cute to look at.

Good Old Fisticuffs: It's entirely possible for 2B and her allies to forgo weapons altogether and beat up the machines with just their bare hands.

Gradual Regeneration: With an Auto Heal chip equipped, your HP recovers when you haven't been damaged for six seconds, the rate dependent on the level and/or number of chips you have equipped. A single level 6 version can regenerate your entire health bar in about ten seconds, making it one of the most powerful chips available on any difficulty except Very Hard.

Grand Theft Me: 9S can hack into and control machines, provided they aren't hostile when he does so. The player takes control of the machine, replacing 9S, until they choose to leave or destroy it. You have access to all their abilities, but flight-capable machines can only be made to briefly hover before losing altitude. While controlling a machine, all other machines are friendly unless attacked, and you can hack into them from the machine you're controlling, allowing you to leap frog from machine to machine as long as you please. This also serves to add the hacked machine to the roster of the Underground Colosseum, allowing you to use more powerful machines for the later fights.

The leaders of the Army of Humanity / the androids in space / what was once Hamelin Organization / the former administrators of Project Gestalt, are never met on screen, but caused a ton of horrible things, such as continuously sending disposable android troops to the Earth to fight the Machines, including Anenome's generation, Jackass's, A2's, and 2B / 9S's.

9S's long dead prototype, Prototype No. 9, also gets some blame, as he's the one who set up the plan to eventually have all of Yorha killed by a logic virus, and then murdered the more well meaning android who had outright dismissed using such means (though still viewed the Yorha as disposable soldiers) , to cover up any evidence the Council of Humanity was a lie and create an unassailable "God" Androids would always be able to believe in.

Grew Beyond Their Programming: Several machine lifeforms throughout the game have abandoned their battle stations to study and imitate human philosophy and culture, to various degrees of success. This is the goal of both factions. Machines seek to evolve and become humans after a machine god (Beepy after his resurrection in the Fires of Prometheus story) taught them of humanity and gave them sentience. The conspirator Androids by using the conflict to advance androids through the YoRHa series to become more human in spirit.

Guide Dang It!: The game isn't particularly forthcoming about a whole bunch of things.

It's next to impossible to witness all 26 endings by accident. Many of them require actions that lie somewhere between "counterintuitive" and "downright stupid" to unlock (like pulling out your OS chip), so good luck finding them all on your own.

Certain areas can only be reached by performing extremely long jumps, way farther than the basic double jump can get your character. There are a couple of techniques available to accomplish this, none of which are ever mentioned in a menu or tutorial.

The game gives no warning whatsoever that many sidequests become unavailable or impossible to complete past specific points in the main story. This can be profoundly annoying for completionists firstly because failing to do those quests in Route A naturally blocks their follow-ups in later routes, and, secondly, some of them reward weapons or unique upgrade items, both of which are required for unlocking achievements and new quests. However, if you beat the game and unlock the chapter select, it will tell you which chapters have incomplete quests and with which characters, though the "Shared Quests" statistic is still obnoxiously vague.

Emil's shop inventory has several sets of goods (chips, materials, weapons) that change depending on a couple of factors, like where in the city ruins he is encountered for example. This is never alluded to at all, and a certain random factor remains even when you know about it, which makes it even harder to discern the mechanics on your own and get him to sell the stuff you need.

The game's resident Ultimate Blacksmith isn't much of a secret. Hints as to his existence are dropped early on by various NPCs, and he isn't particularly hard to nail down either (hint: he's the one that doesn't reside in an allied camp or village). However, getting to the only vendor who fuses plug-in chips to level 8 is a different story. No one ever mentions such an upgrade is even possible, let alone where to look, and the chances of finding out about it are slim because he's located in such an out-of-the-way spot in the Forest Ravine.

There's a secret Bonus Boss battle against Emil that's very hard to find if you don't know where to look, if you even suspect it exists in the first place. The boss in question gives only the vaguest of hints in this regard, it requires the completion of a specific Fetch Quest beforehand, and it doesn't show up in the questlog at all. If you somehow manage to find and beat this boss, it unlocks a second, much more difficult battle that can't be accessed until all weapons have been found and upgraded to the highest level, which in itself is a non-trivial task without a guide. This second fight at least gets a dedicated quest, a map marker and one of the many secondary endings.

Players may suspect there's something up with the bunny statue at the amusement park, since it reads like an enemy on the minimap. Wailing on the thing until you've hurt it enough to piss it off and make it move is far less intuitive, especially since it's a level 80 enemy that won't take any damage at all unless you're 50+ when you try.

Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Inverted, the current battle model androids are all women while the scanners are men who use hacking or their pods as firepower. 9S is an exception as he taught himself melee combat, but even then he prefers to guide his weapons remotely instead of wielding them physically like the others do.

Hacking Minigame: During hacking segments you enter a stylized area where you have to play a twin-stick shooter-style sequence in order to pull off the hack. When you play as 9S, you see this much more often as he has the ability to hack others.

Hailfire Peaks: The game world encompasses sprawling urban ruins, a desert, and a lush forest, all of 'em in more or less direct contact with each other, with sharply defined borders, and they're crammed into an op zone less than two miles across.

Handshake Substitute: Among the ways the YoRHa interact with their pod's, 9S can fist bump with 153. 2B, meanwhile, simply pets the top of 042.

Harmless Enemy: A few different varieties. In some areas, such as the early-game City Ruins and Amusement Park, there are enemies that will fight back if you attack first, but otherwise won't harm you. Other machine NPCs, such as the ones in Pascal's Village, won't fight back even if you attack them. And then there are the multi-tier type units, who can't attack because they don't even have arms.

Heart Drive: Machines have a core unit which contains everything they are. As long as it remains undamaged, it can be placed in a new body and that machine lives on.

Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: At the start of Story C, 2B puts on Powered Armor with a face-concealing helmet, like the rest of the YoRHa soldiers. She takes the helmet off during a cutscene—just before the other, still-helmeted soldiers get infected by the logic virus and become enemies.

Heroic Sacrifice: When you finish ending E, Pod 042 gives you the opportunity to help a random player in need during the credits. However, doing so means that all of your save data is erased.

Hidden Elf Village: Two of them, actually, both inhabited by machines, and bonus points for both being hidden in a forest. Pascal's village is an exceedingly friendly example full of pacifist machines that cut themselves off from the network in order to escape the Forever War. The second example, the Forest King's secluded realm, originated from the same intention but isn't nearly as inclined to welcome outsiders.

Hikikomori: A son machine in the machine village decides to dedicate his life to seclusion, seeing interacting with others as too hard and complicated.

History Repeats: A recurring theme of the game, where events are destined to repeat over and over. From the machines' simplistic programming leading them to repeat the same actions, the 14 wars between android and machine, and even Androids and their actions are not exempt from this. Fittingly, Pascal reads a book by Frederich Nietzsche, who wrote about Eternal Recurrence. Even with the cycle finally broken on Route C/D/E, the Emil's Head weapon reveals the machines begin rebuilding their network 477 years after Automata. Whether this will lead to a 15th Machine War or not is unknown.

Hourglass Plot: During Route C. The distant loner A2, who believes the only good machine is a dead machine, learns to open up, connect with others, and empathize with the machines. Meanwhile 9S, who starts off gregarious and agreeing that maybe machines are people, goes mad from grief, cuts himself off from everyone else, and attempts to genocide all machines.

Humongous Mecha: Some of the larger machine lifeforms, classified as "Goliath", veer into being this. The Engels definitely count, but they all pale before Grün, a monstrous leviathan of metal and aggression that's stated to measure over 1,000 meters in height when standing upright. The first thing it does during its introduction scene is grab a full-sized aircraft carrier in its mouth and bite it in half.

Humanity Is Infectious: A major theme of the game, the majority of the main cast, NPCs, and enemies in game are all non-organic, mechanical lifeforms, yet they continuously show very human traits. Which makes this a very interesting variation, because humanity is long dead by the time of the game. The machines imitate human culture to varying extents based on their capabilities: ordinary simply imitate human behavior in a Cargo Cult of sorts without realizing the implications. More sophisticated ones - like Pascal, the Forest King and Father Servo - use human culture as a starting point to decide their own goals, and thus manifest will and personality. The full extent of the machine network in the form of Adam and Eve, however, is an example of humanity gone too far: they take such qualities as pride, ambition or curiosity to their extreme which makes them unable to empathize with anyone but each other. The androids, on the other hand, are content with already being good facsimiles of humans and are dismissive of machines' much cruder understanding at first. As the game goes on, they realize there was a preprogrammed sinister purpose behind the YoRHa program that made their free will largely irrelevant, ironically making them more automaton-like than they themselves suspected, even as this very knowledge caused them great distress. It is the example of the machines that allow the playable characters to circumvent this and reaffirm that they indeed Grew Beyond Their Programming. The true ending is achieved because even the pods, who are more machine-like than either of the above and have been largely passively following orders throughout the story, have observed, learned, made some conclusions for themselves and decided to act against their core directives in order to save 2B, 9S and A2.

Humanity's Wake: In the Ending B storyline, the YoRHA Commander reveals to 9S that humanity is long extinct. The Council of Humanity was set up by YoRHa to maintain the morale of the androids by convincing them that humanity had escaped to the moon when, in truth, the moon base is just a data server maintained by a small handful of androids. The C/D storyline further reveals that humanity had gone extinct as a result of the failure of Project Gestalt.

Humans Are Special: Adam claims that when compared to humanity's depth of emotions, culture, and abstract thought, his alien creators were at best children, at worst plants in terms of intellectual capacity, despite their incredibly advanced technology. Both the machines and androids long for what humans had so much they've been fighting each other to become more like them.

Adam makes it very clear that the part of the human experience he most admires and wants to emulate is their capacity for violence.

When the Terminals achieve diversity of opinion, and immediately attempt to destroy each other to have the dominant point of view, A2 opines that "They're acting just like humans."

Humans Through Alien Eyes: Humans are both an enigma and a constant source of fascination for every mechanical entity in the game. Machine lifeforms imitate assorted human cultures and behaviors (like sex) without fully understanding their meaning. Adam and Eve go a step further in trying to imitate what they regard as proper human behavior from literature, namely the Bible. Even the androids don't fully grasp them even though they ostensibly serve humanity, finding things like roller coasters and shopping centers incredibly odd.

I Know You Know I Know: It's revealed at the very end of the game that 9S knew the whole time that 2B was actually 2E and that her true function was to kill him if he ever got ahold of too much classified data. According to Taro, he actually didn't knew it from the start, he only realizes it during the story through deduction.

In Medias Res: The game begins well into the centuries-long war between the androids and machine lifeforms, with details as to what the war is all about withheld until after the prologue is over. Concerning the personal drama between 2B and 9S, Route C also makes it clear that their story began long before the opening act, and represented only the latest of the many times 2B encountered 9S and was forced to watch him die.

Innocuously Important Episode: A quest available during route B has 9S meet an android who is of the secret YoRHA type E: "Executioner", who is tasked with assassinating deserters and other androids threatening the integrity of YoRHA. She's been driven insane due to having to kill her dearest friends and even lovers. It's revealed at the end of routes C and D that 2B is actually an E-type herself, meant to kill 9S units who learn too much.

Insufficiently Advanced Alien: According to Adam, the aliens were so stagnant they were akin to "plants" when compared to humanity, which is why machines killed them and decided to copy human behavior instead. It's kind of telling when they were struggling against a race that was extinct before they even arrived.

Interface Screw: If you're severely damaged, infected, or get hit with an EMP attack from specialized machines, your HUD becomes jumbled, like your HP bar becoming really large and wrapping around the screen, or your visuals becoming a curved cathode-tube-like amber screen. In some cases you might even be unable to attack.

Interface Spoiler: You might collect chips that spoil what you get later in the game. For example, getting hacking chips before you play as 9S.

Internal Death Squad: The Executioner (E) units are a secret production line of YoRHa androids deployed by the Bunker to execute deserters like A2. Sometimes they will monitor unreliable assets so they can quickly execute them if necessary, like how 2E was keeping tabs on 9S.

The ending for Route A and B have 2B straddling 9S' waist as she strangles him to death.

In addition to this, during a sidequest Jackass reveals that during combat androids are programed to experience pleasure, and even something close to love in the heat of battle. Which gives an entirely new interpretation to the scene towards the end of route C, where 9S is confronted by a room full of spare 2B bodies and proceeds to violently destroy all of them, repeatedly stabbing the last one in the chest, in a twisted reversal of endings A/B. And speaking of those, what exactly did Adam bleep out when he told 9S "You want to ＊＊＊＊ 2B" — "fuck"... or "kill"? Is there a meaningful distinction for YoRHas at all? Can it be that this is exactly how 2B fell in love with 9S in the first place — by killing him again and again?

Inventory Management Puzzle: Your equipped chips are given representation as a visual stack, which you can move around in order to get the chips to fit. If you'd rather not contend with that, you can choose the optimize option to sort and stack the chips automatically.

"It" Is Dehumanizing: Androids and, as we eventually discover, machine lifeforms, have social genders and will refer to themselves and each other with the proper pronouns. However, any official documentation (i.e. Intel entries) will consistently use "it".

It's a Small World After All: The vast majority of the 14th Machine War's momentous events that will decide the millennia-long struggle between androids and machines takes place in a small section of a ruined city, plus the surrounding regions - all of which combined measure no more than a few square miles.

Joke Character: Multi-tier Type machines can grow to impressive size, look somewhat intimidating, are often found in large groups... and are completely harmless because they lack weapons (they're literally unarmed - their only limbs are their stubby legs). All they can do is glare at the protagonists and awkwardly waddle after them when they get close. Even the intel database points out how utterly preposterous their design is. What makes their pitiful existence even worse is the fact that they drop certain rare upgrade materials that're very hard to obtain from other sources. However, later segments of the game upgrade them to Lethal Joke Characters - their enhanced versionsare armed, and quite heavily, to boot.

Justified Save Point: When you save your game, the android is actually using an access point to backup their memories. This also means you can't save if you're too far from a working access point.

Lack of Empathy: Most machines and androids have it. One sidequest has a machine ask you to kill his kind in the Amusement Park so that he can use their component to make a video game. Other androids reveal themselves to be caustic. The leaders of both sides treat their army as disposable, sabotaging themselves so the war can continue; later, though, they act humanely enough to have their data used for new model androids and/or machines, deleting the past models that have outlived their usefulness.

Katanas Are Just Better: 2B's default weapon is a silver-bladed katana with a white grip (Virtuous Contract). 9S's equivalent is a gold-bladed katana with a black grip (Cruel Oath).

Killed Off for Real: If the machines lose their core they can't come back since their self awareness is encrypted there. Androids can also die if their data doesn't get uploaded in time to the Bunker and of course if the Bunker is destroyed.

Implied with the original S-Type series. The current models are all male, but the YoRHa stage play had S-Type (S21) and the rest of her kind as female. As they were sent on a mission meant to fail it's implied the rest of the female S-Types were wiped out to make way for the more advanced male S-Type.

The A-Type and G-Type were discontinued by YoRHa in the past, leaving A2 as the Sole Survivor of her series.

By the end of the game, there are still a few survivors of YoRHa such as 4S in the Forest King's castle and the two drug-addicted androids in the desert. But in Ending E, Pod 153 confirms all YoRHa black boxes have gone offline somehow, leaving unclear if they also died or being disconnected from the network lead the Pods to view them as dead.

Based on the fact that, according to Taro the Pods as part of their duties in wrapping up and deleting everything about Project YoRHA hunt down any survivors, and directly mentions 4S, the Pods likely killed them.

Killer Rabbit: A literal one (although considerably larger than the average example) spends its days disguised as a golden statue at the amusement park entrance. It doesn't attack unless it's provoked by dealing it enough damage, but when it does, it turns out to be a level 80 enemy that can one-shot most player characters below level 75. It's the most popular target of experience farming runs in the whole game because it's extremely easy to kill with 9S' hacking ability, and destroying it this way results in gaining a guaranteed 2-6 levels plus some very valuable items.

Kill Sat: YoRHa has at least one satellite-based laser cannon in orbit around Earth. It's used against the largest, most dangerous Goliath-class machines there are, although the results tend to be less than impressive.

Lemony Narrator: The joke endings are a few sentences long, but an overwhelming number of them have some pretty darn sarcastic narration.

Lethal Joke Weapon: Fishing in the sewers can net you an iron pipe that counts as a small sword. When fully upgraded, it has the widest damage range of the small sword class, from lower than any other small sword's damage output at level 1 to matching a fully upgraded Type 3 Sword in having the highest damage of any small sword, and comes with perks that give you a chance to score critical hits and stun enemies.

Life Drain: An Offensive Heal chip lets you recover a percentage of HP for every hit you land. Deadly Heal regenerates your health every time you kill an enemy.

Lighter and Softer: Double subverted. At first, the game has a fairly standard RPG plot, right up until a late game plot twist in Route B reveals humanity has already gone extinct, and you've been fighting for nothing. Then Routes C and D start, and all of a sudden YoRHa is annihilated, your supporting cast begins dropping like flies, and by the end of the whole mess every major character save Anemone, Jackass, Pods 042 and 153, and possibly Pascal and 9S are dead. However, the ending is rather optimistic for a Taro Yoko game.

Long Song, Short Scene: A rare example with gameplay implications. The boss fight against the Opera Singer has Mickey Mousing, with many attacks lining up with the music. One part in particular when the singer changes has the camera pan out for a Bullet Hell segment. However, the average player should be able to damage the boss enough to move her to phase 2 before that segment of the song starts, thus never seeing the gameplay segment.

Machine Monotone: All machine lifeforms that can talk have one, with the sole exceptions being Pascal, Adam, and Eve. Pascal's voice still has his species' heavily synthetic inflection, but it's much more emotional and nuanced than any of his peers'.

Engels-class Goliaths are capable of launching a barrage of worryingly big missiles at their target.

Whenever 2B and/or 9S pilot a flight unit, their pod attack gets replaced by their mount unleashing a ridiculous number of small, tightly clustered missiles that can destroy just about anything as long as most of them hit. Naturally, it has a lengthy cooldown to balance out its power.

Pod C's standard attack is a salvo of powerful homing missiles that automatically lock on and seek out enemies in sight. That includes targets far beyond the current engagement range, which can be a blessing or a curse, depending on the situation.

Made of Explodium: Machine lifeforms generally explode violently when they're destroyed, with the size of the explosion naturally scaling with the size of whatever it is that explodes. Fortunately, being near them when it happens doesn't hurt the protagonists, and it usually scatters various amounts of valuable salvage in the form of money, plug-in chips, and/or upgrade materials across the immediate area. However, a hacked machine made to explode will damage its friends if they're close enough.

As revealed in Route B, Simone - the operatic boss in the amusement park - has "He won't look my way" as hers.

Some of the weapon stories include this as well.

Masochist's Meal: Androids can eat any fish except for mackerel. Tasty though it is, mackerel causes androids' bodily fluids to congeal, resulting in paralysis and death.

Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Everything the androids can do is explicitly technological in nature and often contains some Techno Babble, like their use of magnetic fields for throwing their swords the way they do. Magic, on the other hand, appears to be a known phenomenon as well - the pods outright call the insane Emil clones a "magic weapon from the old world". Both examples together make it all the more jarring that nothing is ever made clear about how Adam's and Eve's abilities work, from Adam being born from some golden juice excreted by a bunch of primitive machine lifeforms, to Eve rising fully grown from his brother's limp body in a pillar of light, to all the other insane feats of which they're capable.

The subtitle in the game's title, "Automata", refers to the plural form of "automaton", another word for "robot". Both the protagonists YoRHa androids and the antagonist "machine lifeforms" are non-biological, mechanical lifeforms.

Furthermore, the protagonist is named "2B" (to be), and "9S" (Nein ist, German for "is not", a.k.a, not to be), and they have to contend with a traitorous YoRHa named "A2" (et tu, as in Caesar's famous last words, "et tu, Brute?").

Likewise, Pascal, the leader of the Machine Village, is named after noted mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal. Which becomes even more fitting when you remember that the Pascal is the IS unit for pressure, aka stress on an object via outside forces. And BOY, does Pascal get stressed from outside forces.

Meatgrinder Surgery: Overlaps with LEGO Body Parts given the nature of the game. When 9S comes to after losing an arm in an explosion, he rips the arm off a nearby 2B clone corpse and jams it into his own stump. Incredibly, he can use the new appendage immediately, good as new, with no ill effects save for having to hack himself to purge a weak (computer) viral infection.

The Meaning of Life: One of the main themes of the game revolves around the philosophical concept of existentialism, and explores the overwhelming despair that accompanies self-consciousness in the face of an absurd and seemingly meaningless world. It's also about accepting that meaninglessness, choosing to emphasize the importance of constructing one's own meaning, rather than succumbing to despair and living in Bad Faith.

Meta Mecha: The biped goliath enemy is not a single robot, but a huge mecha suit piloted by four normal-sized machines.

Meta Twist: Devola and Popola are back, and those familiar with the original NieR probably won't trust them. Automata, of course, expects this, as not only are they truly on your side, not only are they not the duo from the original game, but a pair of androids from the same line, but all of android-kind distrusts and resents them on a subconscious level for the actions of the original Devola and Popola, and the twins in Automata have been programmed to feel continuous guilt over it.

Mickey Mousing: The opera singer robot has her attacks happen in time with the music, such as her lasers firing when the orchestra reaches a high point in the music, or a slow paced Bullet Hell segment when the music cuts out for the lone singer.

Mighty Glacier: The golden bunny is large, telegraphs all its attacks, and is fairly slow, but hits like a truck if it actually manages to catch you.

The Mind Is The Plaything Of The Body: Played with. Androids tend to typically be attracted to other androids based on their personality regardless of their bodies gender. Such examples include No. 2 units being close to No. 9 units. No. 6 models on the other hand are shown to be attracted to the same sex only. Gender does however influence how an android acts as YoRHa Boys reveals. Men are far more powerful than their female counterparts but are also more uncontrollable. Female units on the other hand are weaker but more obedient and far less likely to rebel. This is why male units stopped being mass produced and the ones that remained were reformatted into S-Types.

Mind Screwdriver: The game provides an answer to one particular plot point that seemed like an inconsistency from the prior game. Namely, it answers why humans still seem to exist in the YoRHa stageplay and various side materials when they are supposed to have been made extinct by Nier's actions, by revealing it to be one huge lie.

Mini-Game Credits: During Ending E you have to play a hacking-style game against the credits while prompts pop up to taunt you whenever you die.

Moral Myopia: The YoRHa never seem to notice their condescending comments on machinery around them apply just as much to androids like themselves. This gets even more complex when it's revealed the black box circuitry that powers their consciousness is based off of a similar object in machine lifeforms- machine cores-, meaning, in a way, androids are machine lifeforms running around in human-looking skin.

Motivational Lie: To maintain morale in an endless war, the androids at the top hid the extinction of the humans and claimed they were waiting on the moon for Earth to be livable again.

"flowers for m[A]chines": Adam and Eve are both killed, and 9S manages to back himself up after getting hit with the Logic Virus. While the war isn't won, it's a great victory for the androids (and for 2B and 9S, whose combined efforts have allowed YoRHa to gain a foothold on Earth).

"or not to [B]e": Same as the above but from 9S's perspective. It also ends on a much less optimistic note as 9S ponders his true purpose now that humanity is gone for good.

"meaningless [C]ode": A2 manages to purge the Logic Virus code from 9S and destroy the Machine Lifeforms' Tower, but gives up her own life in the process and falls to her demise as the tower collapses. The Pods carry away 9S's body.

"childhoo[D]'s end": 9S kills A2, but he slips in her blood and falls onto A2's blade, inadvertently killing himself. The Machine Lifeforms fire the rocket, successfully travelling to a new world, and 9S either comes with them or stays on Earth to die.

"the [E]nd of yorha": The Pods decide to go against their programming and prevent the deletion of the Yorha Project's data. They reassemble 2B, 9S, and A2, giving the three of them one last shot at life now that the project has been shut down.

Mundane Utility: The Pods are apart from being laser shooting, physics bending and Hard Light creating devices of death, they are also good for creating makeshift chairs as well as being useful for fishing.

In the concert, what is the best use for an atomically thin sword that can cut metal like butter? Digging 40 feet through solid rock!

The YoRHa get their name from a stage play by Taro Yoko called "YoRHa", which is said to take place many years after the first NieR game, in the year 11941. The whole YoRHa story is an allusion to many events that transpired during WWII.

The Recorder android Accord from Drakengard 3 is mentioned by the Weapon Trader at the Resistance Camp to be the owner of the store.

The tattoos that spread across Eve's body include the symbol of the Cult of the Watchers from Drakengard (which we learn in Drakengard 3 is the two Ones together).

A Japanese pre-order DLC can let the Pod Support System look like Grimoire Weiss from the original NieR games. Gameplay-wise, the Pod Support System serves as this game's version of Weiss.

The NieR track "The Dark Colossus Destroys All" is reprised as "Dark Colossus - Kaiju" for the assault of the titanic machine lifeform fought in the ocean during the Missile Supply mission. Both scenes also happen to be points of no-return for their respective storylines.

The crooked blindfold that 2B wears over her eyes is styled like Shadowlord/Father Nier's eye-patch.

The code numbers in Pod 042 and Pod 153 coincidentally are the same numbers that the Intoners from Drakengard 3 are named after.

Several weapon stories reference prior games in the line:

The Iron Pipe story is a narration by Yonah to Nier during the WCS crisis.

One of the first files 9S can find in the factory's servers details the appearance of a Dragon and a Giant sometime in 2003. One of the weirder endings to the original Drakengard which in turn inspired the NieR franchise.

The three 3C3C1D119440927 DLC outfits are the two outfits of Brother Nier and Kaine's outfit from the original NieR.

Never Live It Down: In-Universe, every android in the know will never forget that the Devola and Popola models doomed humanity. While it was an issue with only one pair and partly the Shadowlord/Original's fault, the remaining Twin models are treated with hatred by their fellow androids and were reprogrammed so they'll always feel guilt over it.

Nintendo Hard: The 3C3C1D119440927 DLC adds three Blood Sport arenas to the game, each with its own unique quirks and a set of six challenges ranging from level 25 to level 80 that aren't much of a problem to beat. Once you've finished the sixth one, an additional level 99 challenge unlocks that's predictably more difficult to beat. The one in the desert is just a kill challenge that isn't particularly hard, but the other two are punishing.

The bonus fight in the Flooded City pits the player against 21 waves of level 130+ enemies that one-shot even a maxed-out level 99 protagonist, which means you'll die very quickly and have to start over when it happens. Auto-chip use is disabled, so you'll get your ass kicked even on Easy Mode. Every couple of waves a beefed-up, Shade-colored campaign boss shows up that summons lethal backup if it isn't killed very quickly. The whole battle must be finished within one realtime hour. It takes up to 20 minutes of fighting to emerge victorious while playing in debug mode with invincibility and other cheats enabled, as demonstrated in this video. Players have since discovered some fairly viable methods to beat this challenge legitimately, but those still don't change the fact that you'll die in one hit from anything. To add insult to injury, the battle doesn't even net you any reward that would be worth the effort - all you get is a collection of bog-standard +6 chips, ten Forbidden Fruits that lower your character level by 10 each, and perhaps a warm fuzzy feeling of accomplishment.

The bonus first in the forest pits the player against waves of machines specifically designed to counter every type of machine the player may choose. Ranged? Some have shields. Melee. Some shields have spikes and there are big ranged attackers. Big machine? Spread out little ones with guns. Picking ones with just guns is practically suicide, and everything else still takes a lot of skill.

No Cutscene Inventory Inertia: Cutscenes always show the protagonists with their respective standard weapons and outfits no matter what they're actually equipped with. This also means that 2B will put her skirt back on even when it was previously blown off (or removed on purpose with the Dress Module).

Non-Standard Game Over: There are short endings that can be triggered throughout the game by doing things such as removing the OS chip, blowing yourself up with your self-destruct sequence while you're inside the Bunker, going the wrong way when there's an obvious (and at times not-so-obvious) goal in front of you, killing a friendly NPC(s) or using an item that's stated to have potentially adverse effects on you. All of which are different from the other endings by the credits being sped up.

Obfuscating Stupidity: One machine lifeform from Pascal's village is famous for always choosing a cheap coin over a more valuable one. After hacking in to him, you find his logic circuits are actually more advanced than most, and he reveals he's doing this on purpose since it's making him money—the other machines are happy to keep mockingly giving him the cheap coins.

Ominous Chanting: The Paris Games Week trailer shows the music will include fast-paced ominous chanting.

Once More, with Clarity!: Route B is basically Route A but from 9S' perspective, which offers some perspective on things like the motivations of certain bosses, or 9S' thoughts during certain scenes.

One-Hit-Point Wonder: Playing the game on Very Hard mode makes it so not only do the enemies hit harder and you can't use your lock-on feature, you also die in one hit. And this is a game with Bullet Hell elements. Hope you're good at dodging!

Panty Shot: With her very short outfit, 2B is very prone to this. There's even a hidden achievement for using the camera to look up her skirt repeatedly. If the appropriate chips are equipped when triggering the self-destruct, she survives - but the skirt does not.

Peninsula of Power Leveling: If you return to the place where you first meet Adam after escaping it, you'll be able to fight endless waves of machines, scaled to whichever Route you're currently playing. Short of fighting the extremely tanky golden bunny, it's the fastest way to earn experience, with the added benefit of all the money, chips, and materials they drop.

Permanently Missable Content: While the game generally averts this, allowing you to go back and get any sidequests, equipment or endings you missed at some point or another, Ending Y is the only ending you can be locked out of permanently since it requires a Bonus Boss to use a certain attack, and if you defeat said Bonus Boss you'll never get another chance to fight it again.

Pet the Dog: For all of 9S' and A2's hate of machines, they're willing to hear out the needs of Pascal's pacifist village and genuinely care about Pascal. Notably, 9S still tries to be cordial with Pascal and is concerned about him in Route C/D, when his genocidal thoughts toward machines is at a high.

Shown on the game's cover art, where 2B holds 9S in the iconic manner. 2B also does so briefly in a cutscene after recovering him from Adam.

At the end of the second boss battle, a newborn Eve holds his injured brother Adam this way.

Playable Epilogue: The end of Route B. While the credits are rolling, you have control of 2B and can run around the Bunker talking to everyone, with everyone mostly gushing over how awesome 2B and 9S are. The route will only end after you speak to 9S and return to your room.

Player Data Sharing: If you connect to the network you can choose a message to display to others when they come across your fallen body. You can also give a message to those who are struggling on Ending E.

Playing the Player: To unlock Ending E, which brings back the characters to life with their memories and a second chance, you have to beat a Bullet Hell section that the vast majority of people will only beat by connecting to the network and getting someone's help, after which the game explains that if you want to help someone like that you have to delete your data. It means the help you received was from someone who deleted their game so you could achieve the same ending they had.

Plot Tunnel: Late in 2B's story, she returns to the factory from the opening of the game. The doors lock behind, and she has to fight through a mostly linear level to get back to the open world. Even the save points, which she could normally use to teleport around the map, temporarily can't connect to the outside world.

Point of No Return: Going to the Sunken City to initiate the "Missile Supply Mission" story quest in routes A and B will lock the player out of any uncompleted sidequests due to 2B and 9S being separated after the mission and only reuniting in time for the final battle against Eve. Fortunately, the player will eventually unlock Chapter Select near the end of the game and be able to go back and complete these sidequests.

Powered Armor: The standard combat attire of all YoRHa frontline fighters except for 2B and A2, for some reason. 2B then briefly gets one herself at the beginning of Route C (finishing the game unlocks it as a costume), but it's just a cosmetic item that doesn't do anything except look cool. It is possible that it's only used for full on assault while 2B was doing recon with 9S beforehand.

Power-Up Magnet: With an Auto-Collect Item chip equipped, items are automatically drawn in to you when you come close enough.

Precision F-Strike: Not spoken, but in text form from Jackass during her "Machine Research Report" of the entire truth of the game.

Jackass: So then! To sum up: For hundreds of years, we've been fighting a network of machines with the ghost of humanity at its core. We've been living in a stupid fucking world where we fight an endless war that we COULDN'T POSSIBLY LOSE, all for the sake of some Council of Humanity on the moon that doesn't even exist. I don't know what the point is to all this, but I swear I will kill every evolutionary dead-end machine lifeform, as well as every single asshole behind Project YoRHa. I'm coming for all your heads. Fuck you.

Ending W ("broken [W]ings") requires you to die in the prologue of Route A. On the highest difficulty, a single hit from the first projectiles of this sequence will kill you.

Ending G ("hun[G]ry for knowledge") can be acquired in mere seconds after gaining control of 9S on Route B, by walking in the wrong direction.

Press X to Die: The game offers extensive amount of customization to allow a player to play the game the way they want thanks to the chip system. However, one of the chips available is the OS chip and removing that one causes instant Game Over. Also pressing both joysticks is a self-destruct sequence, although this only drops yourHP to 1. Unless you self-destruct on the Bunker...

Progressive Instrumentation: The final version of "The Weight of the World" ending theme, which plays over Ending E, starts off with a simple Chip Tune leitmotif, before adding more instruments, then the vocals, and finally a choral as certain plot events unfold.

Rage Against the Author: The final bit of gameplay before unlocking the final ending is a shmup segment where you fight against the credits. Implicitly, after your characters died, you've become as a god fighting the other gods of the game's world for the sake of those characters.

Ragnarök Proofing: Just like in the original Nier, despite the immense amount of time that has passed since civilization's downfall the ruins looks fairly fresh with only a bit of rust and overgrowth and with some of the old factories still being operational. Probably justified to a certain extent, as civilization on Earth has had about 8,000 years to not only rebuild, but advance. It's implied some machines do know how to build or re-purpose human buildings.

Reclaimed By Nature: Pretty much all outdoors locations are former urban areas being slowly reclaimed by nature, some overgrown by plants, some simply covered by the desert sands in the thousands of years since humanity's extinction.

Route B starts with the player controlling a little robot that's attempting to revive its "brother" by bringing the latter a pailful of oil. If you hit the jump button, the sprint button or walk into any obstacle while carrying that (comparatively) huge bucket, the poor guy will faceplant into the floor and spill the oil, forcing you to go back and start over.

The androids sink like rocks in water due to combination of their weight and lack of buoyancy.

A romance between the two above persons that is doomed to fail for one reason or another. Caim and his sister due to his rejection on the grounds that he finds incest disgusting, Nier and Kaine because of circumstances, and 2B and 9S due to their In Love with the Mark relationship they share.

A motherly figure is revealed to be in on a dark secret and/or is responsible for the current state of affairs by proxy. Zero, Popola and Devola, and the Commander.

Something that shouldn't have human emotions is found to exhibit them. Often the main character's assist character. Angelus, Weiss, and now the Pods.

A computer-like character meant to oversee the events of the story due to the story being an experiment of some sort and is tasked with ending it once all data was collected, but ultimately choose to go against it because they have come to believe in the main characters' & their efforts. Accord and the Pods.

Events transpire to turn a young person into a psychopath with an insatiable grudge against a group and their followers, if they deserve it or not. Caim against anybody who isn't his friend in Drakengard, the younger smith brother against machines in NieR, Zero against intoners but with a very good reason in Drakengard 3, 9S against Machine Lifeforms.

Due to the action or inaction of the adults caring for them, children suffer horribly.

Machine lifeforms' eyes are normally yellow until they turn hostile. Once engaged, their red eyes flash even brighter as a cue to initiating an attack.

At some point, Eve's tattoo spreads over his body...and he smiles as his eyes glow red.

Also happens to the many YoRHa units infected with the logic virus.

The Q&A from the strategy guide reveals this is because the red eyes are connected to the Red Eye Disease from Drakengard.

Resurrective Immortality: YoRHa androids maintain back-up copies of their memories and personalities via their black boxes and the central servers on the YoRHa stations. This allows fallen androids to be brought back to continue fighting, but there can be problems if their back-ups aren't up to date. Played for horror with The Reveal about how this also ties into the ability for YoRHa androids to have their memories rewritten and altered by their superiors.

The aliens and the humans are functionally extinct by the start of the game. In fact, the aliens have been extinct for centuries, killed by their own machines, who they only programmed to "Destroy the enemy". And humans have been extinct for millenia, ever since the end of the first NieR, and long before the aliens invaded. The only remains of humanity's organic legacy lie in a DNA and memory storage center on the moon.

YoRHa Command is aware of humanity's extinction, but keeps the lie intact so that the Androids do not lose their raison d'être.

2B's real name is 2E; she is more than a combat class android, but rather an executioner class android, who is designed to kill other YoRHa. 2B has killed 9S many times over, with each incarnation of 9S not retaining his memories. However, while 9S doesn't get to keep his memories about the truth behind the humans whenever 2B has to kill him, he does retain (to a certain degree) the memory of knowing 2B's true function.

The YoRHa's ability to have consciousness is based on the machines' own core systems, and is the foundation of their black boxes. Due to being dispoasble this was seen as a humane option compared to creating androids through normal means.

A backdoor into the YoRHa network has been open for an indeterminate amount of time, allowing the machines to kill them all with a Logic Virus whenever they like. All in order to remove any evidence of the fake Council of Humanity's establishment.

The Pods were created by the androids who also created YoRHa, made to oversee the YoRHa project till its conclusion, gathering any data that could be used to create an improved next generation of androids. And, when all YoRHa units black boxes shut down, the pods are programmed to completely delete the YoRHa units' consciousnesses. The good news is they've grown too attached to 2B, 9S and A2 over the course of their travels and decide to gamble with their own lives in order to salvage their memories and give them a chance of living for themselves rather than fighting, suffering and dying for an organization that was founded on a great big sham. Itworks.

A major reveal near the end of the game really turns a lot of the interaction between 2B and 9S on its head once you know it: 2B's, or rather, 2E's true relationship with 9S is to serve as his executioner, and she is also In Love with the Mark. Her constant admonitions to stop showing emotion, stop being so curious, and to focus only on the mission can be interpreted as 2B/2E quietly begging him to not do something that will require her to kill him.

The opening cutscene of Route A can be viewed in a new light with this knowledge. Two of the YoRHa units in the squadron are designated 7E and 11B. Completing the sidequest "11B's Memento" will reveal that 11B was planning to desert YoRHa. 7E's presence most likely means that Command was aware of 11B's upcoming betrayal and sent an Executioner unit on the mission to terminate 11B, which probably would have happened had they not been shot down by an Engels unit at the factory.

Near the end of the prologue mission, 9S is badly damaged and on the verge of death by the Engels unit in the factory. 2B has a near-Freak Out when she gets to his body and becomes extremely desperate to save him. This looks very odd, because 1) she had no such reaction when her squadron was wiped out at the beginning, 2) she has only met 9S for the 1st time less than an hour ago, and 3) she's already told him to stop being emotional. But her reaction makes perfect sense knowing that this is far from the first time he's died in her arms; in fact, it may be one of the only times where his death was not a result of her killing him, and thus explaining her hysterical outburst since this is an "innocent" version of him she's holding.

While wandering around the Bunker after the prologue, you can talk to one of the Operators, who will mention the fact that 2B and 9S are always together and she's glad they're good friends. "Always" together is a very odd thing to say, considering that 2B and 9S have only just met for the first time. Supposedly.

After leaving the Bunker for the first time, 9S questions why a combat model like 2B would be deployed with him to gather intel when a Scanner like him could do the job just fine on his own, a question that she nonchalantly brushes off as "Orders are orders". Her orders are to monitor his progress and to swiftly execute him if he discovers too much sensitive data.

While traversing the castle in the Forest Zone, 2B accidentally refers to 9S as "Nines," which is what he asked her to do in the Amusement Park. He's very pleased at this, but 2B hastily tries to go back to calling him 9S, acting as if she never said "Nines". It's cute and adorable. That scene becomes heartbreaking once you know the reason why she so casually slipped up and called him by an affectionate nickname, only to furiously backpedal on it, is because she has many happy memories of being close to him that inevitably end with her killing him.

One conversation between 2B and 6O has 2B mentioning that she's the worst possible person to ask for relationship advice. The first time around it sounds as if it's because 2B is so dedicated to her mission that she's never had a relationship. On a replay, it's clear that she meant that because she's been forced to execute the one she loves multiple times in the line of duty.

The "YoRHa Betrayers" sidequest becomes doubly uncomfortable. Of course the Commander would assign 2B to this job, since killing traitors is part and parcel of what Executioners do. After the mission is complete, 9S's demands for more information on what exactly the supposed "betrayers" were up to (since they didn't actually steal any supplies) is met with stonewalling by Operator 21O and by 2B, who manages to dissuade him from prying further. The chilling fact is that 9S may have come very close to triggering 2E's kill order here. Operator 21O may also be aware of the many deaths of 9S at 2E's hands, explaining her hesitant pauses and subtle warnings to him not to pry any further.

The "Amnesia" sidequest in Route B is heavily affected by this as well. 2B's rather out of character passive-aggressive sniping at 9S for accepting the quest because the person asking is a pretty girl sounds more like she's irritated he's being curious again. At the end of the quest, the girl's realization that she was actually a type-E YoRHa unit makes 2B uncomfortable and she tells 9S to leave, then when he starts asking questions about the E-series, she gives him very vague answers. Replaying the quest again with the endgame knowledge, it's clear that 2E is becoming very uncomfortable with what the girl is saying about killing her own friends and lovers because it's hitting way too close to home with her own relationship with 9S.

Ending A/B, where 2B kills 9S, lamenting afterwards that things always seem to end as such. At first, it seems to be a Call-Back to the opening mission and how 9S always dies, but what she actually means is that she always executes 9S.

Another tie-in comes relatively early during Route C. After A2 defeats the giant machine centipede in the desert, she ends up having to do a hacking defense where she comes into contact with some of 2B's memories. The specific memory A2 experiences is an audio log where the Commander is giving 2B orders:

Commander: Normally you'd be called [static interference] but we'll be calling you 2B for the time being. Continue to observe the situation and dispatch [static interference] if necessary.note The static interference is covering up the fact that the Commander is saying "2E" and "9S."]

A different example is Anemone's first words in the game, which don't hold any meaning for first-time players. "You're... Number Two." Route C then reveals that the reason for her hesitant delivery was because she momentarily confused 2B for A2, since the latter was the former's predecessor unit model and they share the same face. This also tells you that Anemone is closely acquainted with A2 but has lost touch with her for a while.

The strange appearances of the holographic red girls during Route B. You learn what they are near the end of Route C, which implies that the Terminals have been watching 9S for a long time and know exactly the triggers he has that will drive him insane.

Ridiculously Human Robots: Both androids and machine lifeforms are oddly human. Androids are programmed with human emotion, can be infected with computer viruses through physical damage like an animal with an infected open wound, are able to eat even if they don't need to, have some kind of blood-colored fluid in their bodies, apparently need to breathe since 2B is able to strangle 9S to death, and can even experience motion sickness. Machines, meanwhile, seem to instinctively emulate human behavior, with Adam in particular trying his hardest seem as human as possible.

Turns out to be a Justified Trope, as both the machine network that drives the war forward is trying to develop machines that can replace humans.

Robot Buddy: The "Pod" Support System is one for 2B. It can help her with aerial stunts and to grab hard-to-reach items and enemies. It also functions as the Automata counterpart to the original game's Grimoire Weiss, as it can shoot projectiles similar to Weiss's Dark Blast magic, along with other similar moves (e.g. the "Dark Hand" returns as "Hammer").

Robot Girl: Like all of YoRHa save for S-Types, 2B and A2 are a machine that look like human women.

Robot Religion: A group of robots begin worshiping a god. Or possibly the God. However, later on they come to the conclusion that dying will make them "Become as gods" and they begin slaughtering everyone.

Robot War: Humans with the YoRHa androids vs. aliens with the machines.

Romantic Two-Girl Friendship: Due to the fact that the androids have no true sex (as in male or female) and their physical appearance is base solely on their model (almost all of which resemble human females), female on female romantic relationships are extremely common among the YoRHa androids.

Running Gag: For all the game's depressing atmosphere, it still manages to come up with a couple of recurring funny moments.

9S' habit of answering with a snarky "yeah yeah...".

Operator 21O's stoic "one affirmation is sufficient" reaction to the above. Doubly funny when it gets picked up by other characters as well as the story progresses.

With the alien invasion and the onslaught brought on by the machine lifeforms under the command of the aliens, humanity had no choice but to abandon the Earth and take refuge on the moon. Now it's up to the YoHRa to counter these machines. The truth is, the humans were already extinct before the aliens showed up, only genomes and memories were sent to the moon in the hope they can come back.

In Ending D, the machines have evolved enough and decided that their war with the androids is pointless, so they upload themselves into an ark and launch themselves into space in hopes of finding a new world to colonize.

Sealed Evil in a Can: The machine compatriots of the feral machine Kaiju Grün banished it to the depths of the Pacific long ago because it was completely uncontrollable and killed machines and androids alike. After millennia of inaction down there, Grün rears its titanic head again during the events of the game.

Secret A.I. Moves: If you hack into and control a flight-capable machine, you can only make it hover for a few seconds before it loses altitude, basically limiting you to a slower jump with a longer duration. The computer, naturally, has no such limitation.

All androids come with a self-destruct option that can be toggled on and off in the options menu. By activating it in the YoRHa bunker, you get Ending U, in which you destroy the base with the only survivor being the Commander, who is now furiously drifting across space.

Machines can also be made to self-destruct if you take control of them. It's one of the ways to resume control of your own body once you're done.

The bonus boss against the Emil clones ends with them all activating a self destruct, which all combined together destroys the planet, leading to one of the bad ends.

Sequel Hook: It's not blatant, but careful reading of the text for some optional quests and weapons indicates there is still more story waiting to be told, even after Ending E. Specifically, the weapon stories for Emil's Head indicates that the machine lifeforms are rebuilding their network 477 years after Automata, and an Emil clone encounters 2B one year after that but he doesn't remember her. In addition, the Machine Research Report written by Jackass after the game's end indicates she's planning to hunt down "every single asshole behind Project YoRHa," whose identities were never revealed in the story.

With clever use of the games mechanics, a player can reach areas way sooner than one is meant to and manage to skip huge sections of a dungeon.

Pod C can (and probably will) be acquired much earlier than Pod B, though this has nothing to do with story progression.

Sheathe Your Sword: To defeat the terminals, you have to not attack and let their representations multiply in order to mess up their logic circuits. If you fight them for too long Pod 042 points out as much.

Shield-Bearing Mook: Some robots carrying shields that deflect ranged attacks, and can be used offensively when the robot shoves it at an android. Others have electrified, spiked shields that cause contact damage, but lose the charge after taking a hit or two.

Shock and Awe: The Type-4O line of weapons uses an electrical charge system to stun enemies and deal increased damage for a short time after the weapon was on standby. This is represented in-game by them being wreathed in crackling lightning discharges that intensify the longer the weapon hasn't been used.

Shoot the Shaggy Dog: YoRHa was built with the express purpose of driving off the machines and the aliens that built them so that mankind could return to the Earth. When it is revealed that mankind went extinct and the only trace of it left are servers full of human-centered data, you realize that YoRHa failed their mission long before the game even started.Well since the androids are already diverse enough with their own wills and drive, you would think that YoRHa's androids would be aloud to live out their days on the planet they have been defending all of these millennia after the machines are gone, right?Wrong. The YoRHa models were all designed to be expendable, with many of the more advanced models (like 9S) being killed off after every mission by their partners (specially assigned E-Model androids like 2B - secret alias of 2E) for fear that they would discover the awful truth of humanity's extinction and demoralizing the rest of YoRHa.

With all of the needless destruction and suffering the Terminals have caused - to humanity (before it was wiped out), the Androids (especially to YoRHa before they destroyed them after enslaving its populace with a logic virus), the suffering it put its own drones through by disconnecting them from the network, allowing them to develop their own personalities only to force them into suffering all out of its own curiosity, evolution, and 9S, which it psychologically tortured through the various hardships it put him through - it goes off to a distant planet where it goes completely free of consequence. 9S is denied his revenge for all of his loved ones' death and viral enslavement and dies bleeding and alone with the very person that killed the only person he ever loved (regardless of whether it was a Mercy Kill) and what few Machines that are left on Earth will be left wandering to fend for or destroy themselves.Subverted in Ending E, where it is implied that Pods 042 and 153 rescued 2B, 9S and A2's remains to be rebuilt and reactivated, with 9S coming to the realization that his hatred for the Machines was not entirely fair.

The Concert then has two endings, the bad one ruins ending E. 9S never wakes up. 2B tries futily to get him to wake up, searching for any possible cure. She finds his personal data was deleted in a suicide since he would never be with 2B again. She then shuts down and never moves again.

A lot of people are noticing how the machine lifeforms are giving off very Castle in the Sky-vibes, design-wise.

Some of the weapons you can get in the game include the Engine Blade and the Cypress Stick. The former adds a Warp-Strike effect to your character's evasion dash, and the latter also makes the treasure chests you'll find in the game a lot more like the treasure chests you'd find in a Dragon Quest game. Both of them alter the numerical damage display to fit their respective game, with thin neon-blue lettering from Final Fantasy XV and a cartoony orange font for Dragon Quest.

One of the Pod Skins makes the Pods look a lot like a sideways PlayStation console. It's even called a "Play System" Pod Skin.

On the flip-side, the PC version has a set of accessories for 2B that put red valve handles on her eyes and the back of her head, mimicking Valve's old logos.

The Monster Machine, a one-of-a-kind unit found in the Forest Kingdom in late Route C, is a robot version of Shin Godzilla. Its primary attack even behaves and looks the exact same way as that character's.

The ending of Route A has the subtitle "flowers for m[A]chines", likely a reference to the Science Fiction short story Flowers for Algernon.

The sequence of the first Engels Goliath assembling itself from various heavy machinery bears a striking resemblance to how Devastator assembles himself from various heavy construction vehicles in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Grün, a feral too-big-to-exist (machine) lifeform that rises from the deepest depths of the Pacific to wreak havoc on everything it can find on land, calls to mind certain parallels to Pacific Rim. It's basically a mechanical Kaiju of epic proportions. A track related to it is even called "Kaiju Groupie".

The vendor in the Flooded City DLC area talks just like the Resident Evil 4 merchant. He admits he picked it up from an ancient human artifact.

At the end of the "Gathering Keepsakes" quest you battle a pair of tanks fitted with huge, rather cobbled-together looking spikes and pipes spewing enormous flames in the middle of the desert. The whole vibe is veryMad Max.

Just in case 2B's designation flew over your head, Ending B caps off with the line "or not to [B]e." It also serves as some subtle foreshadowing as to who and what she really is, or rather, is not.

And of course the machine's performance 'Romeos and Juliets'.

Juliet 1: Die, Romeo! Thou stupid asshole.

Sinister Geometry: The game seems to have a recurring cube motif going on, and it all seems to be linked to something important. It's because Adam and the Terminals are replicating human infrastructures using voxel geometry.

Sitcom Archnemesis: Father Servo's side quest from 9S's point of view. 9S is only willing to scavenge pieces for Father Servo just so he and 2B can beat him again for making them run errand.

Slept Through the Apocalypse: A number of characters in Route C manage to avoid misfortune by sheer luck. 4S is the most literal example of this trope, as he avoided the YoRHa wide logic virus attack simply because he wasn't activated at the time and woke up after the Bunker's destruction. The two YoRHa women in the desert were doped up on E-Drugs and also were spared infection. There's also the YoRHa android in the oasis (the only place you can fish for beetle fish). A shut-in child in Pascal's village avoids infection, most likely because he never leaves his room and is disconnected from the machine network. When the Amusement Park is infected with the logic virus, one of the few survivors is the machine taking a break in the back alley.

Socialization Bonus: When you're connected to the network, you can find the corpses of other players lying around. You can pray for them to restore their health in their game, and subsequently retrieve them for some money and temporary buffs, or repair them as a temporary ally.

Spider Tank: The machines field a medium-sized unit type with four legs that has a distinct spider feel to it. Certain Goliath-class units like Ro-Shi boast scores of legs as well.

Spin Attack: Some of the larger machine lifeforms, such as the quad-copter automata, use spinning as a part of their attacks. The Pod Program "Blade" and some Large Swords also have this effect.

Square-Cube Law: The largest Goliath-class enemies, like Grün and the Engels, demonstrate nicely how extremely ponderous such gigantic constructs move by necessity of their enormous mass. Objectively, they still cover huge distances in short order thanks to their sheer size, but the much smaller and more agile YoRHa units still have no serious trouble evading them.

Starfish Aliens: The alien invaders have cephalopod-like bodies. Somehow they became spacefaring conquerors, even though (according to Adam and Eve) their intelligence was only comparable to a human child—or maybe a plant.

Stealth Pun: 2B's name, as well as ending B, which is called "Or not to [B]e", a reference to Shakespeare. And at the end of the game, we learn that there is an additional layer to this pun, as 2B is not, in fact, 2B, but actually 2E - not only punning on her name, but on ending B's title.

Sticks to the Back: The YoRHa models all have a built-in eletromagnetic field that allows them to keep their weapons hovering on their back. This is also the in-game explanation as to how they get away with throwing swords constantly.

Stylistic Suck: The song that plays whenever Emil is rolling around in his ramshackle truck is ridiculously peppy, and so unfitting for the bleak, post-apocalyptic world that it's funny, and it's accompanied by its owner's amateurish singing. Emil starts off just randomly humming along before he belts out with some hilarious lyrics that honestly sound like he's making it up as he goes.

My stuff's so cheap That you will not believe How much you can save. So swing on by And then purchase things Til you're broke!

Super Drowning Skills: Androids can't swim because they're simply too heavy for it and their bodies have zero buoyancy—according to the World Guide, 2B, 9S, and A2 weigh 148.8kg, 129.9kg, and 139.2kg (or 328.0lb, 286.4lb, and 306.9lb), respectively. Falling into water that's deep enough to fully submerge in results in their pod rescuing them and setting them down somewhere on dry ground with a minor loss in health.

Super-Persistent Predator: Ko-Shi and Ro-Shi, a pair of huge spherical Goliath-class enemies that players encounter on the way to Route C's penultimate boss battle, take several epic beatings at 9S' and A2's hands in short order, but return for more multiple times mere minutes later.

[Famitsu]: What might lie at the end of this battle...? (Excerpt from Nier2.com) Saito: A happy ending. Taro: A... happy ending. [Famitsu]: Somehow I want to believe you... (haha) Saito: I don't think many people look forward to Yoko-san's so-called "happy endings"... [Famitsu]: Whether it's androids or robots, it really seems like there will be a lot of emotional moments in this story. Taro: There will be a happy ending this time. I swear, I'm not joshin' you! Don't worry! I keep telling people this, but nobody believes me.

Sword Beam: The Shockwave chips let you shoot projectiles with each melee swing.

The Talk: During the Little Sister Machine escort mission, Little Sister wonders how to make children. 9S has no idea, and gets flustered as Little Sister keeps pushing the point.

After losing the children from his village, Pascal asks you to either delete his memories or kill him. It's not stated in dialogue, but you also have the option to just walk away and leave Pascal to decide his own fate.

After you defeat Auguste, there's a brief moment of interactivity. It's not explicitly framed as a choice, but if you attack, then you kill Auguste and Friedrich, and if you walk away, you'll spare them both.

The game starts with 2B and 9S finding themselves outnumbered and damaged, so they use their black boxes to blow themselves and their enemies up. It happens again when they're swarmed by their fellow androids, driven mad by a logic virus.

The various kamikaze machine lifeforms will attempt this on any android that crosses their path. Interestingly, players can pull this trick themselves by activating 2B's or 9S' self-destruct system. The explosion deals very heavy damage to anything in the blast radius but is survivable for the user, which means it can be deployed as a desperation move when low on health and surrounded by powerful enemies.

The two Japanese versions of the original game were named Replicant and Gestalt in reference to significant entities in the game's story. The sequel continues the trend with a title referring to automatons.

Adam named himself and his brother Eve after reading the Bible, using it as a guideline of how to be human.

Machines Beauvoir and Sartre, named after existentialist authors and couple Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Machines Hegel and Engels are named after philosophers Georg William Frederich Hegel and Fredrich Engels.

Machines So-shi, Boku-shi, Ko-shi, and Ro-shi are the Japanese pronunciations of Chinese philosophers Zhuangzi, Mozi, Kongzi, and Laozi.

Forest King Ernst and Forest King's son Immanuel are named after Ernst Cassirer and Immanuel Kant.

Cult King Kierkegaard is named after Soren Aabye Kierkegaard.

Theseus' Ship Paradox: A supplier in the Resistance camp has trouble walking because his leg is heavily damaged. When he's questioned why he doesn't just replace it, he explains that the leg is the only original part of him remaining. Up until that point in his life, his assorted components have been damaged and subsequently replaced, and, if he switches out his old leg, then there may not be anything left of him anymore.

This Is a Drill: Huge drills are part of the machine lifeforms' melee weapons arsenal, to the point that "drill-equipped" is an established subcategory in YoRHa's enemy intel database.

Throwing Your Sword Always Works: 2B is able to throw her sword at her enemies regardless of the blade's size and it always makes a U-turn and returns to her eventually. This is achieved through a powerful magnetic field generated by the YoRHa androids.

The sword throwing attacks are a lot less awkward then the usual 'spear chucking' type thing seen in most games and anime. Instead of trying to impale an enemy on the point of the blade, 2B tends to hurl the blade into a spinning buzzsaw motion, presumably using the previously mentioned magnetic fields to maintain cutting force and control the trajectory of the blade. You can even make brief pauses (~1 second) in your combos during these attacks and the sword will keep going, pushing enemies back and stacking on more damage, then rebounding to 2B when you continue the combo. The really interesting part here though is that if you dont continue the combo the sword will lose momentum and start to drift off before somehow teleporting back into position on 2B's back.

Tin-Can Robot: The various Machine Lifeforms are clearly designed for function over form. The ones that look humanoid at all still have spherical heads, cylinder bodies, and boxy limbs.

Tomato in the Mirror: 9S discovers documents in the Tower stating that the YoRHa units, specifically their AI, were created by reverse-engineering and adapting the consciousness codes of the machine lifeform cores.

Also the subject of a B route sidequest: the Resistance member asking you to find out who killed her friend in "Amnesia" discovers, to her absolute horror, that she was the murderer due to being an Executioner-type YoRHa unit who wiped her own memory out of trauma.

Tragic Villain: The opera singer and Eve. Simone/Beauvoir became obsessed with becoming beautiful so she could win Jean-Paul/Satre's affections, attacking androids out of despair because she hoped eating their flesh would make her beautiful while Eve is just a manchild who wants to avenge his brother in a suicidal attack. Also 9S, who is pretty much a Villain Protagonist who wants to kill everyone by the end of the game if it means stopping the cycle of pain he is in.

Transforming Mecha: YoRHa flight units can switch at will between their default graceful Mini-Mecha form and a dedicated fighter jet mode that's capable of interorbital operation. Both modes are capable of deploying a huge BFS that forms their tail while not in use - even in mid-flight.

Triumphant Reprise: Once you accept the rescue offer from other players in Ending E, the credits song gains a triumphant chorus.

True Final Boss: The ending credits. In order to see Ending E, the credits sequence - that you've likely seen several times already - turns into a lengthy and tremendously difficult Bullet Hell minigame where you have to take out the name of just about every person involved in the production of the game. Persisting will net you some unexpected support from another player who was willing to make a poignant sacrifice to ensure you would have the firepower necessary to defeat this final obstacle.

Turned Against Their Masters: Adam reveals relatively early on that the machine lifeforms killed off all the actual aliens a couple of centuries before the start of the game.

20 Bear Asses: Needed to upgrade weaponsnote Literal bear asses are not required at any point, though moose skins are. Said asses are random drops (making the item drop plugin very important), and enemies are capable of dropping many different things, but rarely drop more than one in a kill, which can be frustrating if you need Broken Keys and the enemies are only dropping Rusted Clumps (or vice versa), or if you need some rare environment drop and can't find it. Fortunately, most crafting materials can be bought from a vendor at some point in the game. There are also numerous quests that require collecting these upgrade materials, but the game helpfully marks areas where they can reliably be farmed on your map.

Ultimate Blacksmith: There is only one character capable of upgrading your weapons all the way to level 4. The blacksmith, Masamune, can be found in a hidden room in the Forest Castle.

Only the machine merchant at the bottom of the Forest Ravine can fuse plug-in chips past the regular level cap of 6 to a maximum of 8.

Similar to the original NieR, the protagonists can decide to put the entire 14th Machine War on hold to... go fishing. It's basically an integrated, entirely optional mini-game that's completely removed from the narrative and the game's fast-paced combat. A number of useful items including weapons and Pod B can be acquired through it.

Unwinnable by Design: The hostile YoRHa flight units that 2B and 9S encounter after the destruction of the Bunker in Route C can be damaged but not destroyed by any means. Even if 2B sustains no damage at all during that segment, her crash landing at the Flooded City is inevitable.

Unwinnable by Mistake: For the Bullet Hell required to pass to get Ending E, the player will get no help if they play offline. While it is downplayed in that it is technically possible to beat it without help, most players aren't that good to do it, so good luck if you want to get Ending E during an internet outage.

Urban Ruins: The first post-tutorial levels take place in the urban ruins of the human civilization on Earth, centuries after it had been overrun by robotic alien invaders.

The background music changes during key moments, like vocals being added as a battle wears on.

During hacking segments the music segues to a retro version of the track.

In Ending E, once you accept the rescue offer from other players the credits music takes on a Triumphant Reprise and adds a backing chorus.

Vendor Trash: The game outright states that fish are to be sold. One notable exception, however, is the fact that eating a mackerel results in a Cool and Unusual Punishment where 2B dies eating exquisite cuisine.

There are other items, such as jewelry, meat and machine cores, where the flavor text explains that they can be sold to the vendor, and have no other purpose than that. The only time you actually need these kind of items for anything is one specific quest that requires you to turn in a single piece of moose and boar meat.

Victory by Endurance: A2's fight against the Terminals. Since she fights them inside the network, and they completely control the network, it's impossible to beat them through straightforward combat. Instead, at Unit 042's suggestion, A2 just dodges the attacks and lets the Terminals make more copies of themselves—until the computers have trouble running that many copies.

Video Game Caring Potential: Until you get on the roller coaster, none of the machines in the Amusement Park are hostile, and the player is allowed to ignore them and let them have their fun.

There's a secret command that allows the player to pet their pod.

Video Game Cruelty Potential: If you kill any of the friendly machines in Pascal's village, they will scream in fear and agony at you (There's an achievement for killing 10 friendly robots). Also, if you want 100% Completion, you're required to walk away from certain plot-related events (such as walking away from 9S as 2B after killing Adam, ditching Devola and Popola as 9S at the Tower, etc.) in order to get certain joke endings. Have fun!

The "Death Rattle" chip. It takes up 6 memory and does nothing for you unless you really like the sound of things crying out as they die.

Video Game Perversity Potential: Even before the full release, players have fun spotting the best shots of 2B's ass, or using the "Self Destruction" to destroy her dress and leaving her skirtless. Using "Self Destruct" while playing as 9S reveals his boxers under his shorts. You even get an achievement related to perving on both of them.

Villains Out Shopping: When Adam and Eve aren't trying to make life difficult for the Androids, they spend their time just sitting at a table researching humanity by doing assorted mundane things like reading books and eating apples.

Walking Armory: The YoRHa captain 8B carries no fewer than nine weapons - four huge katanas about as long as she is tall on her belt, as well as two additional BFSs plus a spear and a pair of humongous combat bracers on her back. It's impressive she can actually fight with all those things obstructing her every movement.

Warp Whistle: Partway through the game you gain the ability to transport yourself between most of the terminals.

The War Sequence: The Invasion in the post-A/B route pits 2B and 9S against a seemingly never-ending deluge of machines.

Weaksauce Weakness: You discover in Ending K that androids will die instantly if they ever ingest mackerel.

Weaponized Offspring: In addition to the normal projectile variety mentioned above, Biped Goliaths can also rarely shoot out smaller mechanical lifeforms out of their hindquarters.

We Have Reserves: The machines' leaders are more dismissive of their troops than the androids, mostly since they can mass-produce simpler machines, can transfer the data of the machines to the network and the Terminals have a serious God complex so they use them to test the androids capability a lot.

Weird Currency: G, which is just assorted scrap metal picked up from machine lifeforms or found in treasure chests. Justified in that androids are always in need of spare parts, and said scrap metal is frequently used in equipment upgrades.)

Due to the nature of the line, its punch first really hits when it is revealed that 2B has killed 9S numerous times, and 9S is on some level aware of this. Adam could refer to sexual tension between 9S and 2B, or he could just as easily refer to 9S carrying a murderous degree of resentment towards 2B for all the times she has killed him.

Mankind no longer exists.

It carries little significance to the narrative, but in the Machine Examination 2 quest it's casually revealed that the sun no longer sets.

Ending E leaves the fates of 4S and the drug addicted YoRHa units unknown, who were shown to be still alive when they were last seen. However, considering that Pod 153 states that all YoRHa black boxes are offline at the start of Ending E, they must have died or are excluded.

Pretty much everyone in Ending C. This includes 9S' fate, which is also left unknown. Pod 042 simply carries him off somewhere.

If you opt to neither kill nor memory wipe Pascal and simply walk away from him in the abandoned factory, there's no word on what happens to him in any ending.

If you complete his sidequest, Jean Paul leaves the robot village and goes on a journey to "find himself." What happens to him after that, and whether he got infected by the logic virus like the rest of the villagers is unknown.

The "Parade Escort" machines travel to another location to spread their message of peace and joy. The one machine that changed its mind and stayed behind mentions that they were last seen in the Desert, and they were never heard from again.

What Measure Is a Non-Human?: A major theme throughout the game is the alleged inhumanity of the machine lifeforms. It is stated time and again that the machines have no souls and are not truly living, that there is no meaning to anything they do. When you see them throughout the game, however, they appear to exhibit, or at least emulate, human behaviors: some form families with siblings and children, some form communities or found religions, some adopt a pacifist demeanor and refuse to fight, some try to emulate the act of having sex, and so on. They also exhibit human emotions: love, hatred, fear, kindness, jealousy, and loneliness. And what of the androids of YoRHa: what makes them so different from the machines?

What You Are in the Dark: A meta example at the end of the game. You're told that some other player(s) made a Heroic Sacrifice to help you Earn Your Happy Ending by sacrificing their save data. You're given the option to pay it forward, and make the sacrifice yourself. You don't have to, but it would be nice.

Wheel o' Feet: The Goliath Bipeds, when using their bigger limbs as feet, can spin their legs like this as an attack, rather than to run.

Why Am I Ticking?: 9S's hacking in combat, when successful, can turn any unfortunate machine on the receiving end into an AoE bomb doing massive, usually fatal, damage to themselves and half that damage to any companions nearby, with extra range and AoE stun when supported with a stun plug-in. This skill alone makes 9S incredibly powerful in group combat.

Worthless Yellow Rocks: Zigzagged with gold ore, where the flavor text explains that gold was valuable to humans but is useless to androids, but is still a key component in equipment upgrades (not to mention how gold is a useful component in electronics, making the flavor text even more baffling.)

You Are Not Alone: When you get killed enough times during Ending E, you'll start to receive messages of encouragement from other players. Die a few more times, and eventually you'll be assisted and protected by several other ships carrying the names of other players, who will see you through to the end.

You Bastard!: In Route B, you will feel like crap when you've defeated the third golden stubby, who tells you to Get It Over With because you'd already killed their family and friends, so they planned on dying after getting vengeance on you first.

Vengeful Child: Accursed androids... how much longer will you torment us?! You damn monsters!

You Didn't Ask: One side quest involves looking for veterinary supplies at the abandoned shopping mall. When you find a pharmacology textbook, 9S's pod reveals that it already had the complete text of that book saved in its hard drive, making the entire trip pointless. 9S wonders why the pod didn't say anything sooner, and the pod answers that he never asked it.

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